Here, There and Everywhere

o and Rosas-The mentality of a South American-"The Liberator"-The Basques and their national game-Love of English people for foreign words-Yellow fever-Life on an Argentine es

very lovely, but there is something rather melancholy about them, for they are obviously decaying in prosperity; the white planters are abandoning them, and as the coloured people take their place, externals all begin to assume

away, is outside the hurricane area, but is most distinctly inside the earthquake zone, is prolific in venomous snakes and enjoys the further advantage of being the home of the blood-sucking vampire bat. Jamaica is liable to both hurricanes and earthquakes, but has no poisono

hite people, not one of whom one had ever seen before, or was ever likely to meet again. It was as though one had been dropped by an aeroplane into an unknown land, and when the steamer sailed again before midnight, it was all as though it had never been. The orchids on that dinner-table were

tal May 8, 1902-a fiery whirlwind which calcined every human being and every building in the town in less than one minute-molten lava poured into the valley of the Roxelana until it filled it up entirely, burying houses, gardens and plantations alike. There is no trace even of a valley now, and the stream makes its way underground to the sea. Napoleon the Great's first wife, Josephine de la Pagerie, was a native of Martinique and retained all her life the curious indolence of the Creole. Her gross extravagance and her love of luxury may also have been due to her Creole blood. Her first husband, of course, had been the Vicomte de Beauharnais, and her daughter, Hortense de Beauharnais, m

wes its name to Josephine de la Pagerie, for on its first introduction into France it was called La Pager

me de Maintenon, as Francoise d'Aubign

red creature, and she wears a full-skirted, flowing dress of flowered chintz or cretonne, with a fichu of some contrasting colour over her breast. She hides her woolly locks under an ample turban of two shades, one of which will exactly match her fichu, whilst the other will either correspond to or contrast with the colour of her chint

vate their sugar and cotton. These negroes naturally learnt English in the fashion in which their masters spoke it. The white men have gone; the brogue remains. I was much amused on going ashore in the Administrator's whaleboat, he being an

habited rock lying amon

box-like in shape, an

eeing it I had always

e at the "Admiral Benb

on the Dead

and a bott

flection might have shown that one chest would af

f "Horatio Nelson, Captain of H.M.S. Boreas, to Frances Nisbet, widow," on March 11, 1

ed to get their torpid livers into working order again, and the local boast was that for every pearl necklace and pair of diamond shoe-buckles to be seen at the English B

nd or the United States, instead of crushing it locally and exporting the oil, which would occupy one-tenth of the cargo-space? Why, in an island producing both oranges and sugar, ship them separately to Europe to

fterwards the unfortunate aide-de-camp was still as white as a sheet of paper from loss of blood. At Government House, Port-of-Spain, there is a very lofty entrance-hall, bright with electric light. The vampires constantly flew in here, to become helpless at once in the glare of light, when they could be easily killed with a stick. The vampire is a small, sooty-black bat with a perfectly diabol

st I was in Trinidad, General Baden-Powell came there in the course of his world-tour inspection of Boy Scouts. On the day of General Baden-Powell's arrival, all the Badian boatmen and cab-drivers struck work, an

r great countryman General Badian-Powell

he Forestry department has done its work too well. There are broad green rides cut through them, reminiscent of covers in an English park, but certainly not suggestive of

hat he insisted on our doing the three miles on foot, then and there. It was the height of the Brazilian summer, and the heat was something appalling. We struggled over three miles of a glaring white shadeless road, grilled alive by the sun, but always comforting ourselves by dwelling on the cool shades awaiting us at the end of our journey. At length we reached the forest, and wandered into a green twilight under the dense canopy of leaves, which formed an unbrok

culating whether, in the event of our demise in these untrodden wilds, any Brazilian birds, brilliant of plumage but kindly of heart, would cover us up with leaves. These great forest tracts were producing an awe-inspiring effect on us as we realised our precarious position, when we suddenly heard Toot! toot! toot! and to our inexpressible amazement we saw a tramcar ap

preme power, and governed the country as an autocrat. Castro, who was an uneducated half-caste, ruled by corruption and terror; he repudiated all the national obligations, quarrelled with the United States and with every European Power, and disposed of his political opponents by the simple expedient of placing them against a wall with a file of soldiers with loaded rifles in front of them. For eight years this ignorant, bloodthirsty savage enjoyed absolute power, until he was forced in 1908 to flee to Europe. I do not know whether he followed the national cust

Palermo all the carpets and stuffs were scarlet. An elderly lady in Buenos Ayres, who remembered Rosas' dictatorship perfectly, showed me some of the scarlet fans, specially made in Spain for the Argentine market after Rosas had promulgated his edict. My friend described to me how Rosas placed several of his rough police at the doors of every church, and any lady who did not exhibit the obligatory red bow on her black dress (in Spanish-speaking countries the women always go to Mass in black), received a dab of pitch on her cheek, on to which the policeman clapped a rosette of red paper. She told it all so graphically that I could almost see the stream of frightened, black-clad women issuing from the church, whilst their husbands and lovers stood expectantly below (South American men rarely enter a church), every man-jack of them with a scarlet waistcoat, like a flock of swarthy rob

s shipped to England on H.M.S. Locust. He settled down at Swaythling near Southampton, where he d

afterwards managed to secure his nomination as Dictator for life. He ruled Paraguay autocratically but well until his death in 1840, and the country prospered under him. Under the ir

er much about the absence of such trifles as trial by jury, or worry his head over the venality and tyranny of officials, the "faking" of elections, or the disregard of the President of the day for the constitutional limitations imposed upon his office. Do not the national arms and motto proclaim that his country stands in

ected to rule his native land, that he had shown his resentment by attempting to assassinate him. Being, however, but an indifferent shot with a revolver, he had merely wounded the President in the arm. He had somehow managed to escape from Bolivia, or Ecuador, and ultimately made his way to Buenos Ayres, where he was warmly welcomed in revolutionary circles; and his defective marksmanship being overlooked, the will was taken for the deed, and he was always alluded to as "El Libertador," or "The Liberator." I accompanied the young engineer to his boarding-house one evening, where I met the most extraordinary collection of people. Every one was talking at once, and all of them at the very top of their voices, so it was impossible to follow what was being said, but I have no doubt that their opinions were all sufficiently "enlightened" and "advanced." "The Liberato

should omit a visit to the

stead of using a racquet, it is played with a curved wicker basket strapped on to the right wrist. This basket is not unlike in shape to those wicker-work covers which in pre-taxi days were placed by London hotel porters over the wheels of hansom-cabs to protect ladies' dresses in getting in or out of them. When a back-handed stroke is necessary, the player grasps his right wrist with his left hand, using his wicker-encased right hand as a racquet. The court is nearly three times the length of a racquet-court, and is

on a sort of rostrum, each one crowned with the national Basque "beret." Points are being continually referred to their decision, amidst the shouts and yells of the excited partisans. Every time the three umpires stand up, remove their berets, and make low bows to each other; they then confer in whispers, and having reached a decision, they again stan

nd yet I never recollect any one alluding to the Konig of Saxony. Some people seem to imagine that the title "Kaiser" was a personal attribute of William of Hohenzollern; it was nothing of the sort. Should any one have been entitled to the term, it would have been the Hapsburg Emperor, the lineal descendant of the "Heiliger Romischer Kaiser," and yet one used to read such ridiculous headings as "Kaiser meets Austrian Emperor." What did the writers of this imagine that Franz-Josef was called by his subjects? The meaningless practice only originated in England with William II.'s accession; it was unheard of before. If English people h

e to supply him with any of his superfluous rock-plants. My brother answered, regretting his inability to accede to this request, as, owing to the dry spring, his rock-garden had failed absolutely, in fact the only growth visible in it consisted of several hundred specimens of t

e to recover; all the other victims of the yellow scourge died, and I attribute my own escape to the heroic remedy administered to me with my own consent by the ship's doctor. Although Buenos Ayres is quite out of the yellow-fever zone, the disease has occasionally been brought there from Brazil, and to Argentines the words "yellow fever" are words of terror, for in the early "seventies" the population of Buenos Ayres was more than decimated by a fearful epidemic of

to respond to it. It is probably due to the sense of limitless space, and to a feeling of immense freedom, the latter being physical and not political. The only indigenous tree is the ombu, and the ombu makes itself conspicuous by its rarity. Nature must have fashioned this tree with her tongue in cheek, for the wood is a mere pith, and a walking-stick can be driven right into the tree. Not only is the wood useless as timber, but it is equally valueless as fuel, for the pith rots before it can be dried. The leaves are poisonous, and in spite of its being mere pith, it

d his younger brother. Shaking his reins, and calling out "Ico! Ico!" to his horse, he would ride up to the doomed beast, and endeavour to cut him out from the herd. The horse, who understood and enjoyed the game as well as the man on his back, once he had distinguished the bullock they were riding down, needed no stimulant of whip, but would follow him of his own accord, twisting and doubling like a retriever after a wounded hare, or a terrier after a rat. Once the animal was cut out of the herd, the manager would uncoil his lasso, one end of which was made fast to the cinch-ring of his girths, and out flew the looped

s held in the hand. The operator whirls the bolas round his head, and sends them flying at the objective with unfailing certainty, and the animal "emboladoed" drops as though shot through the head. I have seen these used on "outside camps," but on a well-managed estancia, such as Espartillar, the use of the bolas is strictly prohibited, since it tends to break the animal's leg. The only time I ever saw them employed there, was against a peculiarly aggressive male ostrich, who attacked all intruders into his particular domain with the utmost ferocity. The bird fell like a dead thing, and he assumed a very chastened demeanour after this lesson. The South American ostrich, the Rhea, though smaller and less dangerous than his big African cousin, can be most pugnacious when he is rearing a family of young chicks. I advisedly say "he," for the hen ostrich, once she has hatched her eggs, considers all her domestic obligations fulfilled

a plentiful supply of these creatures at Espartillar, and the pupils, when they found an escuerzo, loved to tease him with a stick. He is probably the worse-tempered and most irritable batrachian known, and when prodded with a stick would puff himself out, and work himself into a hideous passion. Every one went about high-booted, and possibly his fangs were not powerful enough to penetrate a boot, but, anyhow, he never made the attempt; he tried t

ous reptile was the

ross," much dread

ound-faced, grinning Cornish lad of eighteen, a youth of large appetite, but of few words, universally known as "The Joven," which merely means "the lad." "Joven," by the way, is pronounced "Hoven," with a slight guttur

time, the Joven grinning from ear to ear, but sitting like a rock, then, as it was as well to teach a young horse that bucking entailed punishment, the revenque descended smartly two or three times, and a revenque hurts. The puzzled youngster did not like it, and thought that he would try rolling for a change. The Joven slipped off with the dexterity of an acrobat, and dancing about on his toes, chose his moment, and was again on the horse's back as he rose. Then came a real contest and trial of skill between the four-legged and two-legged youngsters, as the horse began kicking furiously, and then reared, but do what he would that tiresome weight was still on his back, and there was an unaccustomed pressure on his sides. The Joven, his sun-baked round face wreathed in grins, as though he were having the time of his life, was now using his revenque in earnest, and the young horse decided that he would prefer to try a gallop at full speed. Off he went like an arrow from a bow, the Joven dexterously guiding him through the entrance to the corral, partly with the thong of raw hide, in part with light strokes of the revenque on the side of the head, and they disappeared in a dense cloud of dust over the limitless "camp." A quarter of an hour later they reappeared, the horse cantering quietly, and the boy, still grinning like a Cheshire cat, sitting quite loosely, with his legs dangling, as though he were in an arm-chair. The Joven slid to the ground, and commenced talking to the horse in Spanish, as he stroked his head. "Pingo! Pingo!" he cried, as he stroked him, the word Pingo being

one. It is the singular custom on most estancias to kill beef for six months of the year, and mutton for the remaining six, which entails a certain monotony of diet. We had fallen in for the beef-eating half-year, but the French wife of the English estancia-carpenter

his reason, on every estancia there were some ten acres planted with peach trees. It seems horribly wasteful to cut down peach trees for fuel, but they grow very rapidly, burn admirably, and whilst they are standing the owner gets an unlimited supply of peaches for pickling and preserving. The soil of the Argentine suits peaches, and both sorts, the pink-fleshed

amous peras de agua, must be tasted before their excellence can be imagined. The garden was traversed by an avenue of fine eucalyptus trees, amongst whose dusky foliage little screaming green parrakeets darted in and out all day long, like flashes of vivid emerald light. The garden was also, unfortunately, the favourite re

o constituted that we set bounds to everything, for everything to which we are accustomed has limits; one had a perpetual feeling that were one only to ride over the camp long enough, towns and human habitations must be reached somewhere. A glance at the map s

ed with roving herds of cattle. The picturesque and half-savage Gaucho, who lived entirely on meat, and would have scorned to have walked even a hundred yards on foot, has been replaced by the Italian agricultural labourer, who lives on polent

l day long, where the little ground-owls blinked unceasingly at the edge of their burrows; where bronze-green ibises flashed through the sunlight, and rose-coloured spoonbills trailed in pink