After
breakfast the gardener cut us a fine bouquet of roses and violets, and
we walked to the tramway, and were conveyed by one of the cars,
smoothly and quickly, to the city. The contrast between this mode of
travelling and riding in an ordinary carriage through the ill-paved
streets is very striking. It is really less fatiguing to walk than to
adopt the latter mode of conveyance, and I believe that, but for the
look of the thing, most people would prefer to do so. How the vehicles
themselves stand the jolting I cannot imagine, for they are all large
and handsome, and must suffer tremendous strains.
At noon we went with Mr. Coghlan to see the market and the museum, and
to do some shopping. The market is a large open building, well
supplied with everything at moderate prices; meat, game, fruit,
vegetables, and flowers being especially cheap and good. House-rent
and fine clothes--what Muriel would call 'dandy things'--are very dear
in Buenos Ayres, but all the necessaries of life are certainly cheap.
People of the middle and lower classes live much better here than they
do at home, and the development of bone and muscle in large families
of small children, owing to the constant use of so much meat and
strong soup, is very remarkable. When once they have attained the age
at which they can run about, children get on very well; but the
climate, and the difficulty of obtaining a proper supply of milk in
hot weather, often prove fatal to infants.
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