Buenos Aires

...The joke became turned on me later...

...In fact they stood so during the entire service, canes crooked on arms, because they did not wish their trousers to become uncreased...

...On one side they bore a cross...

...it was a dead give-away...

...different places, different manners...

...One never saw such an array of medicines for dyspepsia anywhere as one finds in the apothecary windows of Buenos Aires...

...They like the blue of the ribbons down there, and the gleam of her Ladyship's silver medal...

...It was a low Mass, and Communion was about finished...

...What with the antipasto and the plentiful vegetables and the fish course I did the best I could, and my opinion of Senores O'Grady, Camarillo et al remained far from flattering...

...By the time I had followed my instinct and arrived at one, what was my surprise to find Mass in progress...

...BUENOS AIRES By TERENCE O'DONNELL THE recent precipitate entrance of Buenos Aires into the realm of the newspaper headlines served to remind this wanderer that the revolution may have far different connotations to the average untraveled North American than circumstances warrant...

...The truth was, that at the preceding Lucullan banquet at the clubhouse, and even now at the formation of the procession to pass under the triumphal arch, there was no question of the precedence to be allowed to the United States officers...

...It was Sunday, and the docks were become the promenade of the people...

...Glancing around, I caught the eye of my captain among the Swedish officers contingent...

...But such is the influence of the Latin strain, the age of adolescence begins early, and maturity arrives for these South Americans far sooner than it does for their North American cousins...

...Then our trend of travel may well turn southward to take in the acquaintance of the Argentinians and other certainly well worth knowing South American neighbors of ours...

...It is a token of acquaintance with a fine and gracious people, inordinately proud of their North American cousins, valuing our acquaintance and friendship, and distinctly worth cultivating...

...A fast on Friday would do them good...

...As we neared the docks the river grew shallow, and the navigation of the heavyladen ship difficult...

...There was an immense porterhouse exhaling its broiled aroma from the great platter in the centre of the table, and it was Friday...

...In my own case, having been twenty-five days at sea, I began to wonder whether there would be a chance of attending Mass...

...Nippon of the Swedish East Asiatic Line sailed up the Rio de la Plata—a river rather muddy than silver, and flowing in immense area between flat and uninteresting shore lines...

...Followed a pause beneath the arch while beautiful senoras and even more beautiful senoritas pinned upon our heaving chests the silver memorial medal struck in honor of the occasion...

...For this day of the great international festa even the race-tracks at Palermo were deserted—no small self-denial for your Argentinian man about town...

...he looked rueful, Captain R---------did, but was too gallant a gentleman to show it...

...One hopes the recent trouble is but temporary, and that the disturbance will soon quiet down...

...It was only when the steak had become annihilated that I learned that the interdict against flesh meat on Fridays did not apply in Argentina...

...Most of the passenger ships berth in Dique 1, and there were many there at that time, mostly flying the Spanish and Italian ensigns...

...Farther over lay the pride of the Argentine navy, a converted German cruiser...

...It was, of course, too late to expect to hear Mass at that hour, I told myself...

...I wore my medal with its blueand-white ribbon—why not...

...but I decided to find a church and make such amende honorable as I could...

...It was one of the legacies of their Spanish descent...

...There was breakfast after, in the refectory: rolls and coffee...

...The day wound up in a blaze of glory, with a grand gala opera performance at the Colon Theatre...

...Noblesse oblige...

...and many, I gathered from their names, should be Catholics...

...Obviously a melting pot...

...I have attended similar gatherings in our own country, and the classic urn shed a smoke compound of newspapers and grass to make a proper smudge...

...On the eventful day the aristocratic and exclusive Ritz sheltered as cosmopolitan a gathering as could be found anywhere...

...some of the people sat, some knelt, others remained standing in their pews...

...Rare luck...

...It was late July, the year after the armistice, when the SS...

...They were invariably men, and arrayed with the rigorous exactitude of apparel required for the Sunday promenade...

...In the centre of the grounds a triumphal arch had been set up, and in the corner a cenotaph had been erected, from whose top a classic urn fumed drenchings of incense...

...I was willing to have come a matter of a few thousand miles to get something out of the war...

...Congregational disicipline such as we know it here did not obtain...

...Our contingent was small, and the English, French, Italian and Swedish were large...

...I had donned my navy uniform, and had permitted my friend Senor Camarillo to convince me that I should wear a cane which was of bamboo and therefore light...

...There were other young foreigners there...

...Drawbridges connect each dock...

...I might add that the docks of Buenos Aires are of the most modern description...

...The invitation must have been more comprehensive, for presently young Englishmen began arriving down from Paraguay and Uruguay and from the pampas as far west as the Andes...

...Brown, fit, lean, marvelously clear-eyed, one sensed that unlike the American immigrants who did not care to leave the port cities and the cabarets, these aliens would grow up and solidify British interests in their adopted country...

...Norte American...

...It was an unmistakable gesture of Argentine courtesy and friendliness...

...Thus attired I felt no umbrage even from the Englishmen's swagger...

...We North Americans clip our hair shorter over the ears than do the barbers in South America...

...Toward three o'clock I found myself near another church and following the crowd, entered...

...Tier on tier the handsome place glowed with the beauty and the gowns and the jewels of the ladies, and the full dress and the uniforms of the men...

...When it was over, I sauntered about, taking in the delightful aspects of the beautiful city—more cosmopolitan, indeed, than New York...

...Fine lads, with the blond and chestnut hair of England, the brown of Ireland, the black of Latin lands...

...I have therefore turned to my notebook to refresh my memory, and perhaps what I find therein may help the reader to a better understanding of our cousins in Argentina...

...Incidentally in the month of my stay I analyzed the reason for the standees of the congregation...

...To explain this seeming dilatoriness, it is only fair to state that as the liturgical day does not end until three of the afternoon, it was quite in order to have Masses until then, however strange it may seem to our American way...

...All the same, I hoped the Pope would look into it...

...They consist of Diques i, 2, 3 and 4, and those at the Riachuelo and the Boca...

...During our stay in Buenos Aires the word was passed that the officers of the ships of all nations then in harbor were invited to attend a festa at the grounds of the Rural Society on a certain Sunday afternoon...

...Another Mass was just beginning, so my Sunday duty was thus satisfactorily accomplished after all...

...I heard eddy about me in boyish whispers...

...We went to Communion that morning at the Jesuit college with the sodality...

...During the first week I was invited to dinner at the home of my friend Senor C...

...but as the massed bands struck up the Argentine national anthem and then the Stars and Stripes we North Americans were the vanguard...

...But berthing had taken toll of time, and it was two o'clock in the afternoon when the lines were fast and gangplank lowered and I set my foot ashore...

...on the other a fisted sword, backed with laurel, and the legend "A Los Cruzados de la Civilizacion" (To the Crusaders of Civilization...

...and the supplementary railway, warehouses, crane and conveying facilities are efficient and up to date in the extreme...

...Everyone was on their way to the grounds of the Rural Society after...

...Afterward they crowded about, curious, eager, fingering the serge of the uniform, the gold braid, the silver insignia of the great sister republic—even the cane passed muster...

...It hangs on my watch-chain still...

...However we gradually negotiated the entrance, and we soon berthed in a nest of stevedore barges, idly contemplated by a multitude of bargemen sipping out of gourds their interminable mate...

...Not, however, where the world may see it, but where my hand occasionally in pocket may feel it...

...Argentina is a great beef-producing nation, and as a result the Argentinians eat too much meat anyway...

...Buenos Aires proper lies on a level plain, only a trifle above sea level, and the winter climate there in July was moist but not uncomfortable...