in the same manner. Infants are placed less than a foot below the surface, and after the lapse of a few days they are cast, with the remains of adults which were in the way, into an excavation of great depth and large circumference. On this hideous mass of rotten coffins, putrefying bodies, and fleshless human bones, I gazed with unutterable horror. Indeed there is here the most revolting want of respect for the human form. This noblest effect of creative skill becomes, at its final deposit, a subject of rudeness at which Christian sensibility stands aghast. It is far otherwise in this place among Protestants. The most scrupulous attention is given by them to the obsequies of their dead. They have expended a large amount of money to procure a suitable cemetery, and so admirably have they succeeded that this place of the dead will scarcely suffer in comparison with the finest in our own country. The area is spacious, the encompassing wall is lofty, the chapel in the centre is exquisitely neat, and the rows of planted trees are appropriate to the mournful purposes of the spot they adorn. So deeply was I moved at my first visit to this place, by the expensive provision strangers had made for the decent interment of their dead, that I felt my reluctance to dying on this distant shore much diminished.

The climate here is decidedly good, but by no means so salubrious as the exaggerated descriptions of most writers have made it. The name of this place, which implies good air, like those of most other places, was purely accidental. When it was first discovered, one of the crew, leaping on shore, exclaimed, “Buenos ayres." But the sense of refreshment felt by this land-air-which is common in most places after a long sea voyage-could not be deemed a sufficient test by which to determine the superior salubrity of this climate. Many with diseased lungs have hastened to this place to repair health by enjoying this healing air, of which travelers have most pompously spoken, but no sooner have they made the experiment than they have found a complete failure, and been compelled to fly to Mendoza, and other kindred climates, for that soft air never breathed in this place. Were this climate free from its sudden changes, and without its great humidity, a kinder one might not exist on the globe; but these two defects divest it of all its power to relieve pulmonary disease, and warn those both of consumptive and rheumatic habits never to experiment on its virtue. At the moment when the heat is most intense, a pampero (a south-west wind sweeping over a vast plain) rushes upon us with irresistible power, and the thermometer suddenly falls from ten to twenty degrees. These winds being unobstructed in their course by trees, hills, or mountains, roll on with an accumulating force, which has at times so affected the river as to leave its bed visible for miles, and so wafted the vessels at its mouth as to drive them hundreds of miles on the ocean. When these winds precede long suspended rain they shroud the city in clouds of dust, and on some occasions so deep has been the darkness as to make artificial lights indispensable at noon-day. These winds are frequently attended with terrible thunder and floods of rain. To the ear of one from higher latitudes these electrical explosions are indescribably terrific. The two spring months, September and October, strikingly resemble April and May, the second and third fall months. These two periods

are far the most pleasant portions of the year. The thermometer averages about sixty degrees. The heavens are usually serene and bright, and the air mild but bracing. We are then free from the humid, piercing winds of winter, no less than from the relaxing sun of summer. Nature here is overcast with but little of that autumnal gloom with which it is so mournfully arrayed in the United States. These verdant plains never appear so lifeless as in the heart of sum. mer. Having no forests to be disrobed of their foliage, and but little vegetation, which fades in winter, instead of appearing to die in autumn, they assume a healthier hue as the sun of summer withdraws its scorching beams. Among the few diseases most frequent in this climate are inflammation and fever. The consequences of severe colds are much more frequently fatal here than among us. All diseases of the place hasten to a crisis with far more rapidity here than there. There is perhaps no community on the globe which suffers more than this from carious teeth. At all seasons of the year this malady is so prevalent, that persons are numerously seen with their faces bound up in almost every street. This, however, is less referable to the climate of the place than to the diet of the people. Sweetmeats are consumed here to an extent almost incredible; they make a portion of every day's meals; they are used from the first to the last day of existence. But while those who prepare them have amassed fortunes, such as most freely eat them have become toothless.

The tea of this city is the growth of Paraguay and the Brazils. It is called yerba, and consists in the leaves of a small tree, slightly bitter and tonical. It is brought to this city and other ports in South America, so densely packed in hides, that the contents of a single skin weigh several hundred pounds. The whole mass of native popu. lation use the decoction of this leaf for their daily beverage, not as we do tea at our meals, but in the interim of the times of eating. They use here neither tea-cups, tea-kettles, nor tea-pots, but take their favorite drink from a small globe, through the medium of a pipe with one end inserted in the globe, and the other in the mouth. This little container, which is the matte pot, is passed round the entire circle, no matter of how high a class, until every one has sipped its contents through the same tube. At this delicacy would certainly demur, were it not for immemorial habit.

In hastily glancing at the persons, manners, and customs of a community, the most sedulous care is indispensable to prevent communicating erroneous ideas. Such matters involve much that is minute, and whatever is of this character may be accurately described only as it is perfectly known. A long residence among a people, a familiar intercourse with their more private and domestic circles, and a ready use of their language, are advantages so obviously indispensable to qualify a writer to portray their social character, that none without these has attempted it, without caricaturing the community of which he has written. Having these qualifications but very limitedly, I shall not dare to draw the less observable lineaments of private or social character, but shall only designate it by such developments as could not escape even a stranger's eye.

From the latitude in which this city is located it might be inferred that the complexion of its inhabitants is of a dusky hue; such is the

fact with regard to all whose situation exposes them to the weather; it is so even to a greater extent than in similar latitudes where the surface is uneven, as this vast level has a much higher temperature than is found elsewhere at the same distance from the equator. But those whose situation rarely exposes them to the sun or winds are untinged by the least tawny shade, and exhibit a complexion in which the rose and lily blend with no less perfection than in the highest latitudes of the United States. But a portion of this people, both in the city and country, would be of a swarthy hue in any climate. Low latitudes may give to their inhabitants a black skin, but high ones cannot suddenly change it to a white color. Many here have shared, in various degrees, both in the Indian and African blood.

Travelers have pronounced very variously of the temperament of this community. While some have charged it with being unsupport. ably phlegmatic, others have decided it to be sanguine above competition." The truth lies at an equal distance from these extremes The Buenosayreans have neither the English reserve nor the French vivacity. Their hospitality is proverbial; but they are vastly less sprightly than so fine a climate would indicate. The energy of warlike Rome, and the vivacity of classic Greece, which might be expected to blend in the character of a people living under this bright sky, are here sought for in vain. Though out of the wild tumults of revolutions, which have agitated a quarter of a century, there ought to have arisen many bright and towering spirits, yet it is impossible to determine that the general intelligence, and free institutions of the United States, would not form of these materials a social fabric of both beauty and strength. But to all mental training a large majority of this people are total strangers. "If there be marble capable of a superior polish it still lies neglected in the quarry." Thousands can neither write nor read. The small portion of the female part of community which is said to be cultivated receives to some extent the ornamental, but rarely ever the useful part of an education. They excel in embroidery, and play well on the piano, but those branches which contribute to mental superiority by calling the understanding into vigorous exercise make no part of a young lady's education. There is an external polish exhibited in the social intercourse of these citizens which is of a marked character.

The unaffected ease and affability with which they meet a stranger, or mingle in a class most dissimilar to their own, I have never before seen equalled. Nor are they less remarkable for their graceful and stately walk. This elegance of movement is certainly acquired, as it is confined to no class, but is common to all ranks. There is much less of private character here in social and public intercourse than in the States. The contrast is even astonishing in many of these citi. zens at home and abroad. Nothing but their physiognomy would awaken the least suspicion that you saw the same persons in one place who were all glitter and gayety in the other. In no one point, perhaps, is this city less capable of comparison with one of ours, than in the amount of its domestic felicity. But on this very delicate topic I am scarcely qualified to be minute. Though the real character of a community can only be known by an acquaintance with its domestic life, as there character receives its strongest and most abid.

ing hues, that is a veiled retreat in which the transient sojourner is rarely inducted.

There is here a strong passion for music and dancing. A tertulia, or neighborhood bill, is attended weekly by hundreds in this city. Indeed they are almost so frequent as are evening calls in the most visiting portions of our community. These often continue till the midnight hour. Such is the pleasing sway which music holds over this people, that under its enchanting sounds their hours appear to contract to moments, and midnight comes sooner there than the bell seems at home to strike for nine.

The want of that modesty to which the females of our country are so delicately alive appears in the ladies here, from the very turn of many of their expressions, and from the circumstances of some of their recreations. Reference can only here be made to that of bathing. This is practiced by both sexes during the whole summer. Nor does it in a Buenosayrean climate contribute less to health than pleasure. But it is done in the river Plata in full view of the city, without any screen to conceal from the public eye. This practice could never obtain in the United States. The unsleeping vigilance with which the maternal eye is fixed on the female part of the family, and the adroitness with which the latter escape the observation of that eye, might be named as an index to character. But by this and all kindred parts of domestic discipline we pass in silence.

In this city, where the fuel is often more expensive than the meat which it was required to cook, no fire is used for the purpose of cleansing garments. All washing is done in every season of the year at the river side, without warming a drop of water, or kindling a spark of fire. The agents in this work consist chiefly of the negro and mulatto women, who range themselves along the beach over a distance of nearly two miles. When my eye first fell on the white garments spread over large portions of the shore, I felt myself for a moment amid the wasting snowbanks of the north, among which the vernal sun had uncovered spots of the soil. The reflection is any thing but agreeable, that the city quenches its thirst and cooks its food by the same water in which the clothes are washed, the horses cooled, the cattle watered, and in which hundreds of the citizens are daily bathing. Though there are scarcely any premises in the city in which a well has not been sunk, so strongly is the water tinctured with saltpetre, that it is alike unfit for drinking and culinary purposes. For these uses water is daily brought in ox carts from the river. While refering to the supplies of water in the city, we should not pass in silence a most disgusting use which is made of this element three days in every year. This takes places at the commencement of Lent, and is calle Carnival. This public nuisance is offensive to common sense, as it is ancient in its origin.

During these three days the war of water obtains over the whole city it issues in sheets from the doors, windows, and roofs of the houses: all are drenched who dare to appear in the streets; pans, buckets, and all kinds of vessels are put in requis tion, and in these water attacks the inhabitants bound from house to house in their offensive and defensive movements. Though repeated attempts have been made to suppress this custom, so disgraceful to a civilized peopie,

these efforts have never been completely successful. The holy subbath is profaned by being always made the first day of this hilarity. The ruin of health and the loss of life not unfrequently result from being so drenched, as are most of the actors in this barbarous

amusement.

The Spanish is the language, and the only language, used by the great mass of this community. By those who are masters of the Castilian it is said to be pronounced very imperfectly in Buenos Ayres. When it is well spoken by learned emigrants from Spain, its sounds are remarkably sweet to the ear, and it is a most pleasant medium for the communication of thought. The sixteenth century produced some authors in this language, who were superior to authors that wrote in the same age in any other language in Europe. And had it been cultivated during the last two centuries as have been the English and French, it might at this moment be deemed the most brilliant of modern languages. An idea may be formed of the facility with which it is acquired when we state that all the letters are sounded, and nearly in the same manner, in all their combinations; that the articles and pronouns are its only words which are declined; that it preserves the natural precedence of its words much more than either the Latin or Greek, and that it has no more than three auxiliary verbs. A language so copious, so elegant, and so easy of attainment-adapted to commerce, to science, and to religion-should not have remained age after age a subject of entire neglect. Such is the connection which Providence is giving to the train of public events, that this language must certainly have a growing importance. It cannot be otherwise, as political earthquakes in Spain are fast shaking down the ancient obstacles to religious intercourse with that fair portion of the globe, and as the southern hemisphere in the new world must soon be expanding into its destined greatness. There are but three papers published in this city: two of them are in the Spanish language, and are issued daily; the third appears every Saturday in an English dress. The editorial talent devoted to the daily papers is highly respectable. Of the leading purposes to which the press is here devoted, this is neither the time nor place to speak. It is sufficient that we are now able to predict a day which will assign to it other purposes, when the awful voice of this "trumpet-tongued thing" will plead for what should distinguish the nineteenth century.

Though this city, like others in South America, had thirty years since scarcely a foreigner within its precincts, it now has a mingled mass whose vernacular tongues are English, French, German, Portu. guese, Italian, and several other European languages. All these, but the most recently arrived, use the Spanish language, excepting when each is in the society of his own countrymen. Indeed, without a knowledge of the Spanish language foreigners can hold no intercourse with the great majority of this community. Fifteen years since there were numerous instances of Spanish families giving their sons an English education. These are almost the only cases in which natives can be addressed in our language.

In this city, as in most others in South America, there is a strong passion for gaming. As the government discountenances this vice, we have no public houses, as in Paris, and some other European cities,