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LETTER XXVI.

THE AUTHORS to GENERAL MILLER.

Great Change for the better, wrought by the Revolution in Buenos Ayres-The Porteños try to please John Bull-Their Abstemiousness rather against this-The pleasure of dwelling in large Cities— Political Importance not desired by Country Folks-Advantages of Society on a large Scale-Miseries of it on a small one.

AFTER a few days careless recreation, we naturally looked around us to see the improvements which, since 1810, had been effected, not so much by the revolution, as by the intercourse, consequent upon that revolution, of natives with foreigners.

Those improvements were not only obvious, but very striking. Everybody was dressed better, everybody lived better than before. There was an evident increase of courtesy, and decrease of distrust on all hands. The interior decoration of the houses was remarkably improved; the capital of the native merchants, through foreign trade, was evidently augmenting; and whereas the old Spaniards had been a year or two before the only depositaries of the wealth of the country, and of the confidence of

68 GREAT CHANGE IN BUENOS AYRES.

foreigners, they were now in process of being gradually superseded in these important trusts by their creole children. Young men who had never dreamt, under the old regime, of rising in the world, and only thought of the best means of raising money, to be spent in dissipation, were now standing forth in the capacity of great commission agents, or enterprizing speculators. Then for the European priests, they were almost out of sight; and their places were occupied by natives of the soil. It was the same with the lawyers; and the estancieros, almost exclusively creoles, were the most rising men in the country. The Spaniards were fast fading into insignificance, or in a course of passive amalgamation with the new order of things; the most splendid and capacious habitations, which they had built at an uncountable cost, were rented by English merchants; men of the John Bull breed, and who all, more or less, carrying out with them John Bull's love of comfort, diffused among the people John Bull's love of hospitality, showed how little John Bull cared about expence, or even extravagance. This begot among the South Americans a relish for luxuries, of which they never before dreamt, and consequently led them into an expence,

AMERICAN ABSTEMIOUSNESS.

69

which was, it may be said, "the very soul of the trade."

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We must, however, do the Americans the justice to say, that while they imitated the comfortable habits of John Bull, they avoided his dissipation. Sometimes, indeed, when brought into contact with him, at a dinner party, they considered it an indispensable part of good breeding to get "half seas over: nay, so essential did they think it to John Bull's happiness to have plenty of wine, that when they invited him to their houses, we have seen many of them, who were never known to drink on ordinary occasions anything but water, take wine, as a testimony of their hospitality, till they were obliged to leave the table under the guidance. of their servants.

The South Americans, especially the better classes of them, are essentially an abstemious people, and if they do occasionally exceed in their eating, before the irresistible influence of a good asado, an olla podrida, or a rich fricassee, they are content, as far as their libations go, to moisten their repast with two or three glasses of wine. They never, when among themselves, sit over their wine, as we delight to do, after dinner. They prefer the en

70 PLEASURE OF DWELLING IN LARGE CITIES.

joyment of their siesta. Then in the cool of the evening, they drink lemonade, or eau sucré, smoke segars, and never even dream of brandy and water.

The most delightful sensation which we experienced on getting into Buenos Ayres, after our exile in the countries of Paraguay and Corrientes, was, that we had ceased to be observed or marked men. We do not say in a social point of view, for in all places we were known in this respect. We speak in a political point of view. In the interior, we were constrained to use every sort of minute and disagreeable caution in this latter respect, in order to avoid suspicion. We had the happy feeling, when we returned to Buenos Ayres, of being "nobody" there. The very reverse in this country we know to be the case. To be nobody in politics here, is death, mortification, and daily disappointment to thousands. To be a diplomatic nonentity in Buenos Ayres, after having been of a marked political importance, and though not suspected, yet always watched, in Paraguay and Corrientes, was as life from death. In the latter places every body was peeping into our actions, and taking notes of our conduct; in the former no one cared a maravedì what our conduct

ADVANTAGES OF SOCIETY ON A LARGE SCALE. 71

was.

The transition was not only emancipation, it was unbounded liberty. We began to breathe as we rode through the long streets inhabited by a hundred thousand people; crowded with our own countrymen, saw English epaulettes and a cocked hat upon the captain of a British man-of-war; and espied at a corner some specially awkward horsemen in the shape of his lieutenants and midshipmen.

Then we could put to sea when we pleased; have as much finery as we liked in our house, without either the fear of an Artigueño's eye, or the dread of his sabre. There was no Francia there; and we once more sat down to good cheer among our own countrymen, in our own way.

Every one knows the minutely kind inspections, the charitable remarks, and the shrewd guesses, which occupy the listless inhabitants of a rural town in England, with reference to any stranger, who, without some particular rank, honourable profession, or known fortune, dares to intrude upon their society. Still, there is, there can be, under our constitution, no political fears on the part of such an intruder. But even under this mitigated view of the case, let him emerge from such a society into that of London, (where the greatest delight of all

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