Dr. ——, in spite of being Indian by blood, spoke most correct and finished Spanish, and had all the courtesy which those who use that beautiful language seem somehow to acquire instinctively. It is to be regretted that the same cannot be said of all those using the English language. Not to be outdone by this polite Paraguayan, I responded in the same vein, and we mutually smothered each other with the choicest flowers of Castilian courtesy. These little amenities, though doubtless tending to smooth down the asperities of life, are apt to consume a good deal of time.
Once at Kyoto in Japan, I had occasion for the services of a dentist. As the dentist only spoke Japanese, I took my interpreter with me. After removing my shoes at the door—an unusual preliminary to a visit to a dentist—we went upstairs, where we found a dapper little individual in kimono and white socks, surrounded by the most modern and up-to-date dental paraphernalia, sucking his breath, and rubbing his knees with true Japanese politeness. Eager to show that a foreigner could also have delightful manners, I sucked my breath, if anything, rather louder, and rubbed my knees a trifle harder. "Dentist says," came from the interpreter, "will you honourably deign to explain where trouble lies in honourable tooth?"
"If the dentist will honourably deign to examine my left-hand lower molar," I responded with charming courtesy, "he will find it requires stopping, but for Heaven's sake, Mr. Nakimura, ask him to be careful how he uses his honourable drill, for I am terrified to death at that invention of the Evil One." Soon the Satanic drill got well into its stride, and began boring into every nerve of my head. I jumped out of the chair. "Tell the dentist, Mr. Nakimura, that he is honourably deigning to hurt me like the very devil with his honourable but wholly damnable drill." "Dentist says if you honourably deign to reseat yourself in chair, he soon conquer difficulties in your honourable tooth." "Certainly. But dentist must not give me honourable hell any more," and so on, and so on. I am bound to admit that the little Jap's workmanship was so good that it has remained intact up to the present days. I wonder if Japs, when annoyed, can ever relieve themselves by the use of really strong language, or whether the crust of conventional politeness is too thick to admit of it. In that case they must feel like a lobster afflicted with acute eczema, unable to obtain relief by scratching himself, owing to the impervious shell in which Nature has encased him.
I dined with the British Consul at Asuncion, after my interview with Dr. ——. The Consul lived three miles out of town, and the coffee we drank after dinner, the sugar we put into the coffee, and the cigars we smoked with it, had all been grown in his garden, within sight of the windows. I had ridden out to the Quinta in company with a young Australian, who will reappear later on in these pages in his proper place; one Dick Howard. It was the first but by no means the last time in my life that I ever got on a horse in evening clothes. Dick Howard, having no evening clothes with him, had arrayed himself in one of his favourite cricket blazers, a pleasantly vivid garment. On our way out, my horse shied violently at a snake in the road. The girths slipped on the grass-fed animal, and my saddle rolled gently round and deposited me, tail-coat, white tie and all, in some four feet of dust. The snake, however, probably panic-stricken at the sight of Howard's blazer, had tactfully withdrawn; otherwise, as it happened to be a deadly Jararaca, it is highly unlikely that I should have been writing these lines at the present moment. The ineradicable love of Dick Howard, the cheery, laughing young Antipodean, for brilliant-hued blazers of various athletic clubs will be enlarged on later. In Indian hill stations all men habitually ride out to dinner-parties, whilst ladies are carried in litters. During the rains, men put a suit of pyjamas over their evening clothes to protect them, before drawing on rubber boots and rubber coats and venturing into the pelting downpour. The Syce trots behind, carrying his master's pumps in a rubber sponge-bag.
All this, however, is far afield from Russia. Alexander III preferred Gatchina to any of his other palaces as a residence, as it was so much smaller, Gatchina being a cosy little house of 600 rooms only. I never saw it except once in mid-winter, when the Emperor summoned the Ambassador there, and I was also invited. As the far-famed beauties of Gatchina Park were covered with four feet of snow, it would be difficult to pronounce an opinion upon them. The rivers and lakes, the haunts of the celebrated Gatchina trout, were, of course, also deep-buried.
Alexander III was a man of very simple tastes, and nothing could be plainer than the large study in which he received us. Alexander III, a Colossus of a man, had great dignity, combined with a geniality of manner very different from the glacial hauteur of his father, Alexander II. The Emperor was in fact rather partial to a humorous anecdote, and some I recalled seemed to divert his Majesty. Outside his study-door stood two gigantic negroes on guard, in Eastern dresses of green and scarlet. The Empress Marie, though she did not share her sister Queen Alexandra's wonderful beauty, had all of her subtle and indescribable charm of manner, and she was very gracious to a stupid young Secretary-of-Embassy.
The bedroom given to me at Gatchina could hardly be described by the standardised epithets for Russian interiors "bare, gaunt, and whitewashed," as it had light blue silk walls embroidered with large silver wreaths. The mirrors were silvered, and the bed stood in a species of chancel, up four steps, and surrounded by a balustrade of silvered carved wood. Both the Ambassador and I agreed that the Imperial cellar fully maintained its high reputation. We were given in particular some very wonderful old Tokay, a present from the Emperor of Austria, a wine that was not on the market.
We were taken all over the palace, which contained, amongst other things, a large riding-school and a full-sized theatre. The really enchanting room was a large hall on the ground floor where many generations of little Grand-Dukes and Grand-Duchesses had played. As, owing to the severe winter climate, it is difficult for Russian children to amuse themselves much out-of-doors, these large play-rooms are almost a necessity in that frozen land. The Gatchina play-room was a vast low hall, a place of many whitewashed arches. In this delightful room was every possible thing that could attract a child. At one end were two wooden Montagnes Busses, the descent of which could be negotiated in little wheeled trollies. In another corner was a fully-equipped gymnasium. There were "giants' strides," swings, swing-boats and a merry-go-round. There was a toy railway with switches and signal-posts complete, the locomotives of which were worked by treadles, like a tricycle. There were dolls' houses galore, and larger houses into which the children could get, with real cooking-stoves in the little kitchens, and little parlours in which to eat the results of their primitive culinary experiments. There were mechanical orchestras, self-playing pianos and barrel-organs, and masses and masses of toys. On seeing this delectable spot, I regretted for the first time that I had not been born a Russian Grand-Duke, between the ages though of five and twelve only.
I believe that there is a similar room at Tsarskoe although I never saw it.
CHAPTER VII
Lisbon—The two Kings of Portugal, and of Barataria—King Fernando and the Countess—A Lisbon bull-fight—The "hat-trick"—Courtship window-parade—The spurred youth of Lisbon—Portuguese politeness—The De Reszke family—The Opera—Terrible personal experiences in a circus—The bounding Bishop—Ecclesiastical possibilities—Portuguese coinage—Beauty of Lisbon—Visits of the British Fleet—Misguided midshipmen—The Legation Whaleboat—"Good wine needs no bush"—A delightful orange-farm—Cintra—Contrast between the Past and Present of Portugal.
A professional diplomat becomes used to rapid changes in his environment. He has also to learn to readjust his monetary standards, for after calculating everything in roubles for, let us say, four years, he may find himself in a country where the peseta or the dollar are the units. At every fresh post he has to start again from the beginning, as he endeavours to learn the customs and above all the mentality of the new country. He has to form a brand-new acquaintance, to get to know the points of view of those amongst whom he is living, and in general to shape himself to totally new surroundings. A diplomat in this way insensibly acquires adaptability.
It would be difficult to imagine a greater contrast to Petrograd than Lisbon, which was my next post. After the rather hectic gaiety of Petrograd, with its persistent flavour of an exotic and artificial civilisation, the placid, uneventful flow of life at Lisbon was restful, possibly even dull.
Curiously enough, in those days there were two Kings of Portugal at the same time. This state of things (which always reminded me irresistibly of the two Kings of Barataria in Gilbert and Sullivan's "Gondoliers") had come about quite naturally. Queen Maria II (Maria da Gloria) had married in 1836 Prince Ferdinand of Saxe-Coburg, who was raised next year to the title of King Consort. Maria II died in 1853 and was succeeded by Pedro V. During his son's minority King Ferdinand acted as Regent, and Pedro, dying unmarried eight years after, was succeeded in turn by his brother Luiz, also a son of King Ferdinand.
When the Corps Diplomatique were received at the Ajuda Palace on New Year's Day, the scene always struck me as being intensely comical. The two Kings (universally known as Dom Fernando and Dom Luiz) entered simultaneously by different doors. When they met Dom Luiz made a low bow to Dom Fernando, and then kissed his father's hand. Dom Fernando responded with an equally low bow, and kissed his son's hand. The two Kings then ascended the throne together. Had "The Gondoliers" been already composed then, I should have expected the two Monarchs to break into the duet from the second act, "Rising early in the Morning," in which the two Kings of Barataria explain their multitudinous duties. As King Luiz had a fine tenor voice, His Majesty could also in that case have brightened up the proceedings by singing us "Take a pair of sparkling eyes."
Dom Fernando was a perfectly delightful old gentleman, very highly cultured, full of humour, and with a charming natural courtesy of manner. The drolly-named Necessidades Palace which he inhabited was an unpretentious house full of beautiful old Portuguese furniture. Most of the rooms were wainscoted with the finest "azulejos" I ever saw; blue and white tiles which the Portuguese adopted originally from the Moors, but learnt later to make for themselves under the tuition of Dutch craftsmen from Delft. These "azulejos" form the most decorative background to a room that can be imagined. A bold pictorial design, a complete and elaborate picture in blue on white, runs along their whole length. It is thus very difficult to remove and re-erect "azulejos," for one broken tile will spoil the whole design. The Portuguese use these everywhere, both for the exteriors and interiors of their houses, and also as garden ornaments, and they are wonderfully effective.
Dom Fernando had married morganatically, as his second wife, a dancer of American origin. This lady had a remarkably strident voice, and was much to the fore on the fortnightly afternoons when Dom Fernando received the men of the Corps Diplomatique. For some reason or other, the ladies of the Diplomatic Body always found themselves unable to attend these gatherings. The courteous, genial old King would move about, smilingly dispensing his truly admirable cigars, and brimful of anecdotes and jokelets. The nasal raucaus tones of the ex-dancer, always known as "the Countess," would summon him in English. "Say, King! you just hurry up with those cigars. They are badly wanted here."
I imagine that in the days of her successes on the stage the lady's outline must have been less voluminous than it was when I made her acquaintance. The only other occasion when I heard a monarch addressed as "King" tout court was when a small relation of my own, aged five, at a children's garden-party at Buckingham Palace insisted on answering King Edward VII's questions with a "Yes, O King," or "No, O King"; a form of address which had a pleasant Biblical flavour about it.
The Portuguese are a very humane race, and are extraordinarily kind to animals. They are also devoted to bull-fights. These two tendencies seem irreconcilable, till the fact is grasped that a Portuguese bull-fight is absolutely bloodless. Neither bulls nor horses are killed; the whole spectacle resolves itself into an exhibition of horsemanship and skill.
The bulls' horns are padded and covered with leather thongs. The picador rides a really good and highly-trained horse. Should he allow the bull even to touch his horse with his padded horns, the unfortunate picador will get mercilessly hissed. These picadores do not wear the showy Spanish dresses, but Louis Quinze costumes of purple velvet with large white wigs. The espada is armed with a wooden sword only, which he plants innocuously on the neck of the bull, and woe betide him should those tens of thousands of eager eyes watching him detect a deviation of even one inch from the death-dealing spot. He will be hissed out of the ring. On the other hand, should he succeed in touching the fatal place with his harmless weapon, his skill would be rewarded with thunders of applause, and all the occupants of the upper galleries would shower small change and cigarettes into the ring, and would also hurl their hats into the arena, which always struck me as a peculiarly comical way of expressing their appreciation.
The espada would gaze at the hundreds of shabby battered bowler hats reposing on the sand of the arena with the same expression of simulated rapture that a prima donna assumes as floral tributes are handed to her across the footlights. The espada, his hand on his heart, would bow again and again, as though saying, "Are these lovely hats really for me?" But after a second glance at the dilapidated head-gear, covering the entire floor-space of the arena with little sub-fuse hummocks, he would apparently change his mind. "It is really amazingly good of you, and I do appreciate it, but I think on the whole that I will not deprive you of them," and then an exhibition of real skill occurred. The espada, taking up a hat, would glance at the galleries. Up went a hand, and the hat hurtled aloft to its owner with unfailing accuracy; and this performance was repeated perhaps a hundred times. I always considered the espada's hat-returning act far more extraordinary than his futile manipulation of the inoffensive wooden sword. During the aerial flights of the hats, two small acolytes of the espada, his miniature facsimiles in dress, picked up the small change and cigarettes, and, I trust, duly handed them over intact to their master. The bull meanwhile, after his imaginary slaughter, had trotted home contentedly to his underground quarters, surrounded by some twenty gaily-caparisoned tame bullocks. To my mind Spanish bull-fighting is revolting and horrible to the last degree. I have seen it once, and nothing will induce me to assist a second time at so disgusting a spectacle; but the most squeamish person can view a Portuguese bull-fight with impunity. Even though the bull has his horns bandaged, considerable skill and great acrobatic agility come into play. Few of us would care to stand in the path of a charging polled Angus bull, hornless though he be. The bandarilheros who plant paper-decorated darts in the neck of the charging bull are as nimble as trained acrobats, and vault lightly out of the ring when hard pressed. Conspicuous at a Lisbon bull-fight are a number of sturdy peasants, tricked out in showy clothes of scarlet and orange. These are "the men of strength." Should a bull prove cowardly in the ring, and decline to fight, the public clamour for him to be caught and expelled ignomiously from the ring by "the men of strength." Eight of the stalwart peasants will then hurl themselves on to the bull and literally hustle him out of the arena; no mean feat. Take it all round, a Portuguese bull-fight was picturesque and full of life and colour, though the neighbouring Spaniards affected an immense contempt for them on account of their bloodlessness and make-belief.
A curious Portuguese custom is one which ordains that a youth before proposing formally for a maiden's hand must do "window parade" for two months (in Portuguese "fazer a janella"). Nature has not allotted good looks to the majority of the Portuguese race, and she has been especially niggardly in this respect to the feminine element of the population. The taste for olives and for caviar is usually supposed to be an acquired one, and so may be the taste for Lusitanian loveliness. Somewhat to the surprise of the foreigner, Portuguese maidens seemed to inspire the same sentiments in the breasts of the youthful male as do their more-favoured sisters in other lands, but in bourgeois circles the "window-parade" was an indispensable preliminary to courtship. The youth had to pass backwards and forwards along the street where the dwelling of his innamorata was situated, casting up glances of passionate appeal to a window, where, as he knew, the form of his enchantress would presently appear. The maiden, when she judged that she might at length reveal herself without unduly encouraging her suitor, moved to the open window and stood fanning herself, laboriously unconscious of her ardent swain in the street below. The youth would then express his consuming passion in pantomime, making frantic gestures in testimony of his mad adoration. The senhorita in return might favour him with a coy glance, and in token of dismissal would perhaps drop him a rose, which the young man would press to his lips and then place over his heart, and so the performance came to an end, to be renewed again the next evening. The lovesick swain would almost certainly be wearing spurs. At first I could not make out why the young men of Lisbon, who had probably never been on a horse in their whole lives, should habitually walk about the town with spurs on their heels. It was, I think, a survival of the old Peninsular tradition, and was intended to prove to the world that they were "cavalleiros." In Spain an immense distinction was formerly made between the "caballero" and the "peon"; the mounted man, or gentleman, and the man on foot, or day-labourer. The little box-spurs were the only means these Lisbon youths had of proving their quality to the world. They had no horses, but they had spurs, which was obviously the next best thing.
Fortunes in Portugal being small, and strict economy having to be observed amongst all classes, I have heard that these damsels of the window-sill only dressed down to the waist. They would assume a corsage of scarlet or crimson plush, and, their nether garments being invisible from below, would study both economy and comfort by wearing a flannel petticoat below it. It is unnecessary for me to add that I never verified this detail from personal observation.
Some of the old Portuguese families occupied very fine, if sparsely furnished, houses, with enfilades of great, lofty bare rooms. After calling at one of these houses, the master of it would in Continental fashion "reconduct" his visitor towards the front door. At every single doorway the Portuguese code of politeness dictated that the visitor should protest energetically against his host accompanying him one step further. With equal insistence the host expressed his resolve to escort his visitor a little longer. The master of the house had previously settled in his own mind exactly how far he was going towards the entrance, the distance depending on the rank of the visitor, but the accepted code of manners insisted upon these protests and counter-protests at every single doorway.
In Germany "door-politeness" plays a great part. In one of Kotzebue's comedies two provincial notabilities of equal rank are engaged in a duel of "door-politeness." "But I must really insist on your Excellency passing first." "I could not dream of it, your Excellency. I will follow you." "Your Excellency knows that I could never allow that," and so on. The curtain falls on these two ladies each declining to precede the other, and when it rises on the second act the doorway is still there, and the two ladies are still disputing. Quite an effective stage-situation, and one which a modern dramatist might utilise.
In paying visits in Lisbon one was often pressed to remain to dinner, but the invitation was a mere form of politeness, and was not intended to be accepted. You invariably replied that you deeply regretted that you were already engaged. The more you were urged to throw over your engagement, the deeper became your regret that this particular engagement must be fulfilled. The engagement probably consisted in dining alone at the club, but under no circumstances must the invitation be accepted. In view of the straitened circumstances of most Portuguese families, the evening meal would probably consist of one single dish of bacalhao or salt cod, and you would have put your hosts to the greatest inconvenience.
With the exception of the Opera, the Lisbon theatres were most indifferent. When I first arrived there the Lisbon Opera had been fortunate enough to secure the services of a very gifted Polish family, a sister and two brothers, the latter of whom were destined later to become the idols of the London public. They were Mlle. de Reszke and Jean and Edouard de Reszke, all three of them then comparatively unknown. Mlle. de Reszke had the most glorious voice. To hear her singing with her brother Jean in "Faust" was a perfect revelation. Mlle. de Reszke appeared to the best advantage when the stalwart Jean sang with her, for she was immensely tall, and towered over the average portly, stumpy, little operatic tenor. The French say, cruelly enough, "bête comme un ténor." This may or may not be true, but the fact remains that the usual stage tenor is short, bull-necked, and conspicuously inclined to adipose tissue. When her brother Jean was out of the cast, it required an immense effort of the imagination to picture this splendid creature as being really desperately enamoured of the little paunchy, swarthy individual who, reaching to her shoulder only, was hurling his high notes at the public over the footlights.
At afternoon parties these three consummate artists occasionally sang unaccompanied trios. I have never heard anything so perfectly done. I am convinced that had Mlle. de Reszke lived, she would have established as great a European reputation as did her two brothers. The Lisbon musical public were terribly critical. They had one most disconcerting habit. Instead of hissing, should an artist have been unfortunate enough to incur their displeasure, the audience stood up and began banging the movable wooden seats of the stalls and dress circle up and down. This produced a deafening din, effectually drowning the orchestra and singers. The effect on the unhappy artist against whom all this pandemonium was directed may be imagined. On gala nights the Lisbon Opera was decorated in a very simple but effective manner. Most Portuguese families own a number of "colchas," or embroidered bed-quilts. These are of satin, silk, or linen, beautifully worked in colours. On a gala night, hundreds of these "colchas" were hung over the fronts of the boxes and galleries, with a wonderfully decorative effect. In the same way, on Church festivals, when religious processions made their way through the streets, many-lined "colchas" were thrown over the balconies of the houses, giving an extraordinarily festive appearance to the town.
As at Berlin and Petrograd, there was a really good circus at Lisbon. I, for one, am sorry that this particular form of entertainment is now obsolete in England, for it has always appealed to me, in spite of some painful memories connected with a circus which, if I may be permitted a long digression, I will relate.
Nearly thirty years ago I left London on a visit to one of the historic châteaux of France, in company with a friend who is now a well-known member of Parliament, and also churchwarden of a famous West-end church. We travelled over by night, and reached our destination about eleven next morning. We noticed a huge circular tent in the park of the château, but paid no particular attention to it. The first words with which our hostess, the bearer of a great French name, greeted us were, "I feel sure that I can rely upon you, mes amis. You have to help us out of a difficulty. My son and his friends have been practising for four months for their amateur circus. Our first performance is to-day at two o'clock. We have sold eight hundred tickets for the benefit of the French Red Cross, and yesterday, only yesterday, our two clowns were telegraphed for. They have both been ordered to the autumn manoeuvres, and you two must take their places, or our performance is ruined. Je sais que vous n'allez pas me manquer." In vain we both protested that we had had no experience whatever as clowns, that branch of our education having been culpably neglected. Our hostess insisted, and would take no denial. "Go and wash; go and eat; and then put on the dresses you will find in your rooms." I never felt so miserable in my life as I did whilst making up my face the orthodox dead white, with scarlet triangles on the cheeks, big mouth, and blackened nose. The clown's kit was complete in every detail, with wig, conical hat, patterned stockings and queer white felt shoes. As far as externals went, I was orthodoxy itself, but the "business," and the "wheezes"! The future church-warden had been taken in hand by some young Frenchmen. As he was to play "Chocolat," the black clown, they commenced by stripping him and blacking him from head to foot with boot-blacking. They then polished him.
I entered the ring with a sinking heart. I was to remain there two hours, and endeavour to amuse a French audience for that period without any preparation whatever. "Business," "gag," and "patter" had all to be improvised, and the "patter," of course, had to be in French. Luckily, I could then throw "cart-wheels" and turn somersaults to an indefinite extent. So I made my entrance in that fashion. Fortunately I got on good terms with my audience almost at once, and with confidence came inspiration; and with inspiration additional confidence, and a judicious recollection of the stock-tricks of clowns in various Continental capitals. Far greater liberties can be taken with a French audience than would be possible in England, but if anyone thinks it an easy task to go into a circus ring and to clown for two hours on end in a foreign language, without one minute's preparation, let him try it. The ring-master always pretends to flick the clown; it is part of the traditional "business"; but this amateur ring-master (most beautifully got up) handled his long whip so unskilfully that he not only really flicked my legs, but cut pieces out of them. When I jumped and yelled with genuine pain, the audience roared with laughter, so of course the ring-master plied his whip again. At the end of the performance my legs were absolutely raw. The clown came off badly too in some of the "roughs-and-tumbles," for the clown is always fair game. The French amateurs gave a really astonishingly good performance. They had borrowed trained horses from a real circus, and the same young Hungarian to whom I have alluded at the beginning of these reminiscences as having created a mild sensation by appearing at Buckingham Palace in a tiger-skin tunic trimmed with large turquoises, rode round the ring on a pad in sky-blue tights, bounding through paper hoops and over garlands of artificial flowers as easily and gracefully as though he had done nothing else all his life. Later on in the afternoon this versatile Hungarian reappeared in flowing Oriental robes and a false beard as "Ali Ben Hassan, the Bedouin Chief." Riding round the ring at full gallop, and firing from the saddle with a shot-gun, he broke glass balls with all the dexterity of a trained professional. That young Hungarian is now a bishop of the Roman Catholic Church. Before 1914 I had occasion to meet him frequently. Whenever I thought that on the strength of his purple robes he was assuming undue airs of ecclesiastical superiority (to use the word "swanking" would be an unpardonable vulgarism, especially in the case of a bishop), I invariably reminded his lordship of the afternoon, many years ago, when, arrayed in sky-blue silk tights, he had dashed through paper hoops in a French amateur circus. My remarks were usually met with the deprecatory smile and little gesture of protest of the hand so characteristic of the Roman ecclesiastic, as the bishop murmured, "Cher ami, tout cela est oublié depuis longtemps," I assured the prelate that for my own part I should never forget it, if only for the unexpected skill he had displayed; though I recognise that bishops may dislike being reminded of their past, especially when they have performed in circuses in their youth.
In addition to the Hungarian's "act," there was another beautiful exhibition of horsemanship. A boy of sixteen, a member of an historic French family, by dint of long, patient, and painful practice, was able to give an admirable performance of the familiar circus "turn" known as "The Courier of St. Petersburg," in which the rider, standing a-straddle on two barebacked ponies, drives four other ponies in front of him; an extraordinary feat for an amateur to have mastered. My friend the agile ecclesiastic is portrayed, perhaps a little maliciously, in Abel Hermant's most amusing book "Trains de Luxe," under the name of "Monseigneur Granita de Caffe Nero." It may interest ladies to learn that this fastidious prelate always had his purple robes made by Doucet, the famous Paris dressmaking firm, to ensure that they should "sit" properly. On the whole, our circus was really a very creditable effort for amateurs.
The entertainment was, I believe, pronounced a tremendous success, and at its conclusion the only person who was the worse for it was the poor clown. He had not only lost his voice entirely, from shouting for two hours on end, but he was black and blue from head to foot. Added to which, his legs were raw and bleeding from the ring-master's pitiless whip. I am thankful to say that in the course of a long life that was my one and only appearance in the ring of a circus. My fellow-clown, "Chocolat," the future member of Parliament and churchwarden, had been so liberally coated with boot-blacking by his French friends that it refused to come off, and for days afterwards his face was artistically decorated with swarthy patches.
Before 1914, I had frequently pointed out to my friend the bishop that should he wish to raise any funds in his Hungarian diocese he could not do better than repeat his performance in the French circus. As a concession to his exalted rank, he might wear tights of episcopal purple. Should he have retained any of the nimbleness of his youth, his flock could not fail to be enormously gratified at witnessing their chief pastor bounding through paper hoops and leaping over obstacles with incredible agility for his age. The knowledge that they had so gifted and supple a prelate would probably greatly increase his moral influence over them and could scarcely fail to render him amazingly popular. Could his lordship have convinced his flock that he could demolish the arguments of any religious opponent with the same ease that he displayed in penetrating the paper obstacles to his equestrian progress, he would certainly be acclaimed as a theological controversialist of the first rank. In the same way, I have endeavoured to persuade my friend the member of Parliament that he might brighten up the proceedings in the House of Commons were he to appear there occasionally in the clown's dress he wore thirty years ago in France. Failing that, his attendance at the Easter Vestry Meeting of his West-end church with a blackened face might introduce that note of hilarity which is often so markedly lacking at these gatherings.
All this has led me far away from Lisbon in the "'eighties." Mark Twain has described, in "A Tramp Abroad," the terror with which a foreigner is overwhelmed on being presented with his first hotel bill on Portuguese territory. The total will certainly run into thousands of reis, and the unhappy stranger sees bankruptcy staring him in the face.
As a matter of fact, one thousand reis equal at par exactly four and twopence. It follows that a hundred reis are the equivalent of fivepence, and that one rei is the twentieth of a penny.
A French colleague of mine insisted that the Portuguese were actuated by national pride in selecting so small a monetary unit. An elementary calculation will show that the proud possessor of £222 10s. can claim to be a millionaire in Portugal. According to my French friend, Portugal was anxious to show the world that though a small country, a larger proportion of her subjects were millionaires than any other European country could boast of. In the same way the Frenchman explained the curious Lisbon habit of writing a number over every opening on the ground floor of a house, whether door or window. As a result the numbers of the houses crept up rapidly to the most imposing figures. It was not uncommon to find a house inscribed No. 2000 in a comparatively short street. Accordingly, Lisbon, though a small capital, was able to gain a spurious reputation for immense size.
A peculiarity of Lisbon was the double set of names of the principal streets and squares: the official name, and the popular one. I have never known this custom prevail anywhere else. Thus the principal street was officially known as Rua Garrett, and that name was duly written up. Everyone, though, spoke of it as the "Chiada." In the same way the splendid square facing the Tagus which English people call "Black Horse Square" had its official designation written up as "Praça do Comercio." It was, however, invariably called "Terreiro do Paço." The list could be extended indefinitely. Street names in Lisbon did not err in the matter of shortness. "Rua do Sacramento a Lapa de Baixio" strikes me as quite a sufficiently lengthy name for a street of six houses.
Lisbon is certainly a handsome town. It has been so frequently wrecked by earthquakes that there is very little mediæval architecture remaining, in spite of its great age. Two notable exceptions are the Tower of Belem and the exquisitely beautiful cloisters of the Hieronymite Convent, also at Belem. The tower stands on a promontory jutting into the Tagus, and the convent was built in the late fifteen-hundreds to commemorate the discovery of the sea route to India by Vasco da Gama. These two buildings are both in the "Manoeline" style, a variety of highly ornate late Gothic peculiar to Portugal. It is the fashion to sneer at Manoeline architecture, with its profuse decoration, as being a decadent style. To my mind the cloisters of Belem (the Portuguese variant of Bethlehem) rank as one of the architectural masterpieces of Europe. Its arches are draped, as it were, with a lace-work of intricate and minute stone carving, as delicate almost as jewellers' work. The warm brown colour of the stone adds to the effect, and anyone but an architectural pedant must admit the amazing beauty of the place. The finest example of Manoeline in Portugal is the great Abbey of Batalha, in my day far away from any railway, and very difficult of access.
At the time of the great earthquake of 1755 which laid Lisbon in ruins, Portugal was fortunate enough to have a man of real genius at the head of affairs, the Marquis de Pombal. Pombal not only re-established the national finances on a sound basis, but rebuilt the capital from his own designs. The stately "Black Horse Square" fronting the Tagus and the streets surrounding it were all designed by Pombal. I suppose that there is no hillier capital in the world than Lisbon. Many of the streets are too steep for the tramcars to climb. The Portuguese fashion of coating the exteriors of the houses with bright-coloured tiles of blue and white, or orange and white, gives a cheerful air to the town,—the French word "riant" would be more appropriate—and the numerous public gardens, where the palm-trees apparently grow as contentedly as in their native tropics, add to this effect of sunlit brightness. As in Brazil and other Portuguese-speaking countries, the houses are all very tall, and sash-windows are universal, as in England, contrary to the custom of other Continental countries.
House rent could not be called excessive in Portugal. In my day quite a large house, totally lacking in every description of modern convenience, but with a fine staircase and plenty of lofty rooms, could be hired for £30 a year, a price which may make the Londoner think seriously of transferring himself to the banks of the Tagus.
In the "'eighties" Lisbon was the winter headquarters of our Channel Squadron. I once saw the late Admiral Dowdeswell bring his entire fleet up the Tagus under sail; a most wonderful sight! The two five-masted flagships, the Minotaur and the Agincourt, had very graceful lines, and with every stitch of their canvas set, they were things of exquisite beauty. The Northumberland had also been designed as a sister ship, but for some reason had had two of her masts removed. The old Minotaur, now alas! a shapeless hulk known as Ganges II, is still, I believe, doing useful work at Harwich.
As may be imagined, the arrival of the British Fleet infused a certain element of liveliness into the sleepy city. Gambling-rooms were opened all over Lisbon, and as the bluejackets had a habit of wrecking any place where they suspected the proprietor of cheating them, the Legation had its work cut out for it in endeavouring to placate the local authorities and smooth down their wounded susceptibilities. One gambling-house, known as "Portuguese Joe's," was frequented mainly by midshipmen. They were strictly forbidden to go there, but the place was crammed every night with them, in spite of official prohibition. The British midshipman being a creature of impulse, the moment these youths (every one of whom thought it incumbent on his dignity to have a huge cigar in his mouth, even though he might still be of very tender years) suspected any foul play, they would proceed very systematically and methodically to smash the whole place up to matchwood. There was consequently a good deal of trouble, and the Legation quietly put strong pressure on the Portuguese Government to close these gambling-houses down permanently. This was accordingly done, much to the wrath of the midshipmen, who were, I believe, supplied with free drinks and cigars by the proprietors of these places. It is just possible that the Admiral's wishes may have been consulted before this drastic action was taken. Midshipmen in those days went to sea at fourteen and fifteen years of age, and consequently needed some shepherding.
As our Minister had constantly to pay official visits to the Fleet, the British Government kept a whale-boat at Lisbon for the use of the Legation. The coxswain, an ex-naval petty officer who spoke Portuguese, acted as Chancery servant when not afloat. When the boat was wanted, the coxswain went down to the quay with two bagfuls of bluejackets' uniforms, and engaged a dozen chance Tagus boatmen. The Lisbon boatman, though skilful, is extraordinarily unclean in his person and his attire. I wish the people who lavished praises on the smart appearance of the Legation whaleboat and of its scratch crew could have seen, as I often did, the revoltingly filthy garments of these longshoremen before they drew the snowy naval white duck trousers and jumpers over them. Their persons were even dirtier, and—for reasons into which I need not enter—it was advisable to smoke a strong cigar whilst they were pulling. The tides in the Tagus run very strong; at spring-tides they will run seven or eight knots, so considerable skill is required in handling a boat. To do our odoriferous whited sepulchres of boatmen justice, they could pull, and the real workmanlike man-of-war fashion in which our coxswain always brought the boat alongside a ship, in spite of wind and tremendous tide, did credit to himself, and shed a mild reflected glory on the Legation.
The country round Lisbon is very arid. It produces, however, most excellent wines, both red and white, and in my time really good wine could be bought for fourpence a bottle. At the time of the vintage, all the country taverns and wine shops displayed a bush tied to a pole at their doors, as a sign that they had new wine, "green wine," as the Portuguese call it, for sale. Let the stranger beware of that new wine! Though pleasant to the palate and apparently innocuous, it is in reality hideously intoxicating, as a reference to the 13th verse of the second chapter of the Acts will show. I think that the custom of tying a bush to the door of a tavern where new wine is on sale must be the origin of the expression "good wine needs no bush."
The capabilities of this apparently intractable and arid soil when scientifically irrigated were convincingly shown on a farm some sixteen miles from Lisbon, belonging to a Colonel Campbell, an Englishman. Colonel Campbell, who had permanently settled in Portugal, had bought from the Government a derelict monastery and the lands attached to it at Torres Vedras, where Wellington entrenched himself in his famous lines in 1809-10. A good stream of water ran through the property, and Colonel Campbell diverted it, and literally caused the desert to blossom like the rose. Here were acres and acres of orange groves, and it was one of the few places in Europe where bananas would ripen. Colonel Campbell supplied the whole of Lisbon with butter, and the only mutton worth eating came also from his farm. It was a place flowing, if not with milk and honey, at all events with oil and wine. Here were huge tanks brimful of amber-coloured olive oil; whilst in vast dim cellars hundreds of barrels of red and white wine were slowly maturing in the mysterious shadows. Outside the sunlight fell on crates of ripe oranges and bananas, ready packed for the Lisbon market, and in the gardens tropical and sub-tropical flowering trees had not only thoroughly acclimatised themselves, but had expanded to prima-donna-like dimensions. The great rambling tiled monastery made a delightful dwelling-house, and to me it will be always a place of pleasant memories—a place of sunshine and golden orange groves; of rustling palms and cool blue and white tiles; of splashing fountains and old stonework smothered in a tangle of wine-coloured Bougainvillea.
The environs of all Portuguese towns are made dreary by the miles and miles of high walls which line the roads. These people must surely have some dark secrets in their lives to require these huge barriers between themselves and the rest of the world. Behind the wall were pleasant old quintas, or villas, faced with my favourite "azulejos" of blue and white, and surrounded with attractive, ill-kept gardens, where roses and oleanders ran riot amidst groves of orange and lemon trees.
Cintra would be a beautiful spot anywhere, but in this sun-scorched land it comes as a surprising revelation; a green oasis in a desolate expanse of aridity.
Here are great shady oak woods and tinkling fern-fringed brooks, pleasant leafy valleys, and a grateful sense of moist coolness. On the very summit of the rocky hill of Pena, King Fernando had built a fantastic dream-castle, all domes and pinnacles. It was exactly like the "enchanted castle" of one of Gustave Doré's illustrations, and had, I believe, been partly designed by Doré himself. Some of the details may have been a little too flamboyant for sober British tastes, but, perched on its lofty rock, this castle was surprisingly effective from below with its gilded turrets and Moorish tiles. As the castle occupied every inch of the summit of the Pena hill, the only approach to it was by a broad winding roadway tunnelled through the solid rock. Openings had been cut in the sides of the tunnel giving wonderful views over the valleys far down below. This approach was for all the world like the rocky ways up which Parsifal is led to the temple of the Grail in the first act of Wagner's great mystery drama. The finest feature about Pena, to my mind, was the wood of camellias on its southern face. These camellias had grown to a great size, and when in flower in March they were a most beautiful sight.
There was a great deal of work at the Lisbon Legation, principally of a commercial character. There were never-ending disputes between British shippers and the Custom House authorities, and the extremely dilatory methods of the Portuguese Government were most trying to the temper at times.
I shall always cherish mildly agreeable recollections of Lisbon. It was a placid, sunlit, soporific existence, very different from the turmoil of Petrograd life. The people were friendly, and as hospitable as their very limited financial resources enabled them to be. They could mostly speak French in a fashion, still their limited vocabulary was quite sufficient for expressing their more limited ideas.
I never could help contrasting the splendid past of this little nation with its somewhat inadequate present, for it must be remembered that Portugal in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries was the leading maritime Power of Europe. Portugal had planted her colonies and her language (surely the most hideous of all spoken idioms!) in Asia, Africa, and South America long before Great Britain or France had even dreamed of a Colonial Empire.
They were a race of hardy and fearless seamen. Prince Henry the Navigator, the son of John of Portugal and of John of Gaunt's daughter, discovered Madeira, the Azores, and the Cape Verde islands in the early fourteen-hundreds.
In the same century Diaz doubled the Cape of Good Hope, and Vasco da Gama succeeded in reaching India by sea, whilst Albuquerque founded Portuguese colonies in Brazil and at Goa in India. This race of intrepid navigators and explorers held the command of the sea long before the Dutch or British, and by the middle of the sixteenth century little Portugal ranked as one of the most powerful monarchies in Europe.
Portugal, too, is England's oldest ally, for the Treaty of Windsor establishing an alliance between the two countries was signed as far back as 1386.
This is not the place in which to enter into the causes which led to the gradual decadence of this wonderful little nation, sapped her energies and atrophied her enterprise. To the historian those causes are sufficiently familiar.
Let us only trust that Lusitania's star may some day rise again.
CHAPTER VIII
Brazil—Contrast between Portuguese and Spanish South America—Moorish traditions—Amazing beauty of Rio de Janeiro—Yellow fever—The Commercial Court Chamberlain—The Emperor Pedro—The Botanic Gardens of Rio—The quaint diversions of Petropolis—The liveried young entomologist—Buenos Ayres—The charm of the "Camp"—Water-throwing—A British Minister in Carnival time—Some Buenos Ayres peculiarities—Masked balls—Climatic conditions—Theatres—Restaurants—Wonderful bird-life of the "Camp"—Estancis Negrete—Duck-shooting—My one flamingo—An exploring expedition in the Gran Chaco—Hardships—Alligators and fish—Currency difficulties.
My first impression of Brazil was that it was a mere transplanted Portugal, but a Portugal set amidst the most glorious vegetation and some of the finest scenery on the face of the globe. It is also unquestionably suffocatingly hot.
There is a great outward difference in the appearances of the towns of Portuguese and Spanish South America. In Brazil the Portuguese built their houses and towns precisely as they had done at home. There are the same winding irregular streets; the same tall houses faced with the decorative "azulejos"; the same shutterless sash-windows. A type of house less suited to the burning climate of Brazil can hardly be imagined. There being no outside shutters, it is impossible to keep the heat out, and the small rooms become so many ovens. The sinuosities of the irregular streets give a curiously old-world look to a Brazilian town, so much so that it is difficult for a European to realise that he is on the American Continent, associated as the latter is in our minds with unending straight lines.
In all Spanish-American countries the towns are laid out on the chess-board principle, with long dreary perspectives stretching themselves endlessly. The Spanish-American type of house too is mostly one-storied and flat-roofed, with two iron-barred windows only looking on to the street. The Moorish conquerors left their impress on Spain, and the Spanish pioneers carried across the Atlantic with them the Moorish conception of a house. The "patio" or enclosed court in the centre of the house is a heritage from the Moors, as is the flat roof or "azotea," and the decorated rainwater cistern in the centre of the "patio."
The very name of this tank in Spanish, "aljibe," is of Arabic origin, and it becomes obvious that this type of house was evolved by Mohammedans who kept their womenkind in jealous and strict seclusion. No indiscreet eyes from outside can penetrate into the "patio," and after nightfall the women could be allowed on to the flat roof to take the air. Those familiar with the East know the great part the roof of a house plays in the life of an Oriental. It is their parlour, particularly after dark. As the inhabitants of South America are not Mohammedans, I cannot conceive why they obstinately adhere to this inconvenient type of dwelling. The "patio" renders the house very dark and airless, becomes a well of damp in winter, and an oven in summer. To my mind unquestionably the best form of house for a hot climate is the Anglo-Indian bungalow, with its broad verandahs, thatched roof, and lofty rooms. In a bungalow some of the heat can be shut out.
On my first arrival in Brazil, the tropics and tropical vegetation were an unopened book to me, and I was fairly intoxicated with their beauty.
There is a short English-owned railway running from Pernambuco to some unknown spot in the interior. The manager of this railway came out on the steamer with us, and he was good enough to take me for a run on an engine into the heart of the virgin forest. I shall never forget the impression this made on me. It was like a peep into a wholly unimagined fairyland.
Had the calls of the mail steamer been deliberately designed to give the stranger a cumulative impression of the beauties of Brazil, they could not have been more happily arranged. First of Pernambuco in flat country, redeemed by its splendid vegetation; then Bahia with its fine bay and gentle hills, and lastly Rio the incomparable.
I have seen most of the surface of this globe, and I say deliberately, without any fear of contradiction, that nowhere is there anything approaching Rio in beauty. The glorious bay, two hundred miles in circumference, dotted with islands, and surrounded by mountains of almost grotesquely fantastic outlines, the whole clothed with exuberantly luxurious tropical vegetation, makes the most lovely picture that can be conceived.
The straggling town in my day had not yet blossomed into those vagaries of ultra-ornate architecture which at present characterise it. It was quaint and picturesque, and fitted its surroundings admirably, the narrow crowded Ruado Ouvidor being the centre of the fashionable life of the place.
It will be remembered that when Gonçalves discovered the great bay on January 1st, 1502, he imagined that it must be the estuary of some mighty river, and christened it accordingly "the River of January," "Rio de Janeiro." Oddly enough, only a few insignificant streams empty themselves into this vast landlocked harbour.
During my first fortnight in Rio, I thought the view over the bay more beautiful with every fresh standpoint I saw it from; whether from Botofogo, or from Nichteroy on the further shore, the view seemed more entrancingly lovely every time; and yet over this, the fairest spot on earth, the Angel of Death was perpetually hovering with outstretched wings; for yellow fever was endemic at Rio then, and yellow fever slays swiftly and surely.
One must have lived in countries where the disease is prevalent to realise the insane terror those two words "yellow fever" strike into most people. On my third visit to Rio, I was destined to contract the disease myself, but it dealt mercifully with me, so henceforth I am immune to yellow fever for the remainder of my life. The ravages this fell disease wrought in the West Indies a hundred years ago cannot be exaggerated. Those familiar with Michael Scott's delightful "Tom Cringle's Log" will remember the gruesome details he gives of a severe outbreak of the epidemic in Jamaica. In those days "Yellow Jack" took toll of nearly fifty per cent. of the white civil and military inhabitants of the British West Indies, as the countless memorial tablets in the older West Indian churches silently testify. Before my arrival in Rio, a new German Minister had, in spite of serious warnings, insisted on taking a beautiful little villa on a rocky promontory jutting into the bay. The house with its white marble colonnades, its lovely gardens, and the wonderful view over the mountains, was a thing of exquisite beauty, but it bore a very evil reputation. Within eight months the German Minister, his secretary, and his two white German servants were all dead of yellow fever. The Brazilians declare that the fever is never contracted during the daytime, but that sunset is the dangerous hour. They also warn the foreigner to avoid fruit and acid drinks.
Conditions have changed since then. The cause of the unhealthiness of Rio was a very simple one. All the sewage of the city was discharged into the landlocked, tideless bay, where it lay festering under the scorching sun. An English company tunnelled a way through the mountains direct to the Atlantic, and all the sewage is now discharged there, with the result that Rio is practically free from the dreaded disease.
The customs of a monarchial country are like a deep-rooted oak, they do not stand transplanting. Where they are the result of the slow growth of many centuries, they have adapted themselves, so to speak, to the soil of the country of their origin, have evolved national characteristics, and have fitted themselves into the national life. When transplanted into a new country, they cannot fail to appear anachronisms, and have always a certain element of the grotesque about them. In my time Dom Pedro, the Emperor of Brazil, had surrounded himself with a modified edition of the externals of a European Court. A colleague of mine had recently been presented to the Emperor at the Palace of São Christovão. As is customary on such occasions, my colleague called on the two Court Chamberlains who were on duty at São Christovão, and they duly returned the visit. One of these Chamberlains, whom we will call Baron de Feijão e Farinha, seemed reluctant to take his departure. He finally produced a bundle of price lists from his pocket, and assured my colleague that he would get far better value for his money at his (the Baron's) ready-made clothing store than at any other similar establishment in South America. From another pocket he then extracted a tape measure, and in spite of my colleague's protest passed the tape over his unwilling body to note the stock size, in the event of an order. The Baron de Feijão especially recommended one of his models, "the Pall Mall," a complete suit of which could be obtained for the nominal sum of 80,000 reis. This appalling sum looks less alarming when reduced to British currency, 80,000 Brazilian reis being equal to about £7 7s. I am not sure that he did not promise my colleague a commission on any orders he could extract from other members of the Legation. My colleague, a remarkably well-dressed man, did not recover his equanimity for some days, after picturing his neatly-garbed form arrayed in the appallingly flashy, ill-cut, ready-made garments in which the youth of Rio de Janeiro were wont to disport themselves. To European ideas, it was a little unusual to find a Court Chamberlain engaged in the ready-made clothing line.
On State occasions Dom Pedro assumed the most splendid Imperial mantle any sovereign has ever possessed. It was composed entirely of feathers, being made of the breasts of toucans, shaded from pale pink to deep rose-colour, and was the most gorgeous bit of colour imaginable. In the sweltering climate of Brazil, the heat of this mantle must have been unendurable, and I always wondered how Dom Pedro managed to bear it with a smiling face, but it certainly looked magnificent.
One of the industries of Rio was the manufacture of artificial flowers from the feathers of humming-birds. These feather flowers were wonderfully faithful reproductions of Nature, and were practically indestructible, besides being most artistically made. They were very expensive.
The famous avenue of royal palms in the Botanic Gardens would almost repay anyone for the voyage from Europe. These are, I believe, the tallest palms known, and the long avenue is strikingly impressive. The Oreodoxa regia, one of the cabbage-palms, has a huge trunk, perfectly symmetrical, and growing absolutely straight. This perspective of giant boles recalls the columns of an immense Gothic cathedral, whilst the fronds uniting in a green arch two hundred feet overhead complete the illusion. The Botanic Gardens have some most attractive ponds of pink and sky-blue water lilies, and the view of the bay from the gardens is usually considered the finest in Rio.
Owing to the unhealthiness of Rio, most of the Foreign Legations had established themselves permanently at Petropolis, in the Organ Mountains, Petropolis being well above the yellow fever zone. On my third visit to Rio, such a terrible epidemic of yellow fever was raging in the capital that the British Minister very kindly invited me to go up straight to the Legation at Petropolis. The latter is three hours' distance from Rio by mountain railway. People with business in the city leave for Rio by the 7 a.m. train, and reach Petropolis again at 7 p.m. The old Emperor, Dom Pedro, made a point of attending the departure and arrival of the train every single day, and a military band played regularly in the station, morning and evening. This struck me as a very unusual form of amusement. The Emperor (who ten months later was quietly deposed) was a tall, handsome old gentleman, of very distinguished appearance, and with charming manners. He had also encyclopædic knowledge on most points. That a sovereign should take pleasure in seeing the daily train depart and arrive seemed to point to a certain lack of resources in Petropolis, and to hint at moments of deadly dulness in the Imperial villa there. Dom Pedro never appeared in public except in evening dress, and it was a novelty to see the head of a State in full evening dress and high hat at half-past six in the morning, listening to an extremely indifferent brass band braying in the waiting-room of a shabby railway station.
Nature seems to have lavished all the most brilliant hues of her palette on Brazil; the plumage of the birds, the flowers, and foliage all glow with vivid colour. Even a Brazilian toad has bright emerald-green spots all over him. The gorgeous butterflies of this highly-coloured land are well known in Europe, especially those lovely creatures of shimmering, iridescent blue.
These butterflies were the cause of a considerable variation in the hours of meals at the British Legation.
The Minister had recently brought out to Brazil an English boy to act as young footman. Henry was a most willing, obliging lad, but these great Brazilian butterflies exercised a quite irresistible fascination over him, and small blame to him. He kept a butterfly-net in the pantry, and the instant one of the brilliant, glittering creatures appeared in the garden, Henry forgot everything. Clang the front-door bell so loudly, he paid no heed to it; the cook might be yelling for him to carry the luncheon into the dining-room, Henry turned a deaf ear to her entreaties. Snatching up his butterfly-net, he would dart through the window in hot pursuit. As these great butterflies fly like Handley Pages, he had his work cut out for him, and running is exhausting in a temperature of 90 degrees. The usual hour for luncheon would be long past, and the table would still exhibit a virgin expanse of white cloth. Somewhere in the dim distance we could descry a slim young figure bounding along hot-foot, with butterfly-net poised aloft, so we possessed our souls in patience. Eventually Henry would reappear, moist but triumphant, or dripping and despondent, according to his success or failure with his shimmering quarry. After such violent exercise, Henry had to have a plunge in the swimming-bath and a complete change of clothing before he could resume his duties, all of which occasioned some little further delay. And this would happen every day, so our repasts may be legitimately described as "movable feasts." It was no use speaking to Henry. He would promise to be less forgetful, but the next butterfly that came flitting along drove all good resolves out of this ardent young entomologist's head, and off he would go on flying feet in eager pursuit. I recommended Henry when he returned to England to take up cross-country running seriously. He seemed to have unmistakable aptitudes for it.
The streets of Petropolis were planted with avenues of a flowering tree imported from the Southern Pacific. When in bloom, this tree was so covered with vivid pink blossoms that all its leaves were hidden. These rows of bright pink trees gave the dull little town a curious resemblance to a Japanese fan.
There are some lovely little nooks and corners in the Organ Mountains. One ravine in particular was most beautiful, with a cascade dashing down the cliff, and the clear brook below it fringed with eucharis lilies, and the tropical begonias which we laboriously cultivate in stove-houses. Unfortunately, these beauty spots seemed as attractive to snakes as they were to human beings. This entailed keeping a watchful eye on the ground, for Brazilian snakes are very venomous.
No greater contrast can be imagined than that between the forests and mountains of steamy Brazil and the endless, treeless, dead-flat levels of the Argentine Republic, twelve hundred miles south of them.
When I first knew Buenos Ayres in the early "'eighties," it still retained an old-world air of distinction. The narrow streets were lined with sombre, dignified old buildings of a markedly Spanish type, and the modern riot of over-ornate ginger-bread architecture had not yet transformed the city into a glittering, garish trans-Atlantic pseudo-Paris. In the same way newly-acquired wealth had not begun to assert itself as blatantly as it has since done.
I confess that I was astonished to find two daily English newspapers in Buenos Ayres, for I had not realised the size and importance of the British commercial colony there.
The "Camp" (from the Spanish campo, country) outside the city is undeniably ugly and featureless, as it stretches its unending khaki-coloured, treeless flatness to the horizon, but the sense of immense space has something exhilarating about it, and the air is perfectly glorious. In time these vast dun-coloured levels exercise a sort of a fascination over one; to me the "Camp" will always be associated with the raucous cries of the thousands of spurred Argentine plovers, as they wheel over the horsemen with their never-ending scream of "téro, téro."
As in most countries of Spanish origin, the Carnival was kept at Buenos Ayres in the old-fashioned style. In my time, on the last day of the Carnival, Shrove Tuesday, the traditional water-throwing was still allowed in the streets. Everyone going into the streets must be prepared for being drenched with water from head to foot. My new Chief, whom I will call Sir Edward (though he happened to have a totally different name), had just arrived in Buenos Ayres. He was quite unused to South American ways. On Shrove Tuesday I came down to breakfast in an old suit of flannels and a soft shirt and collar, for from my experiences of the previous year I knew what was to be expected in the streets. Sir Edward, a remarkably neat dresser, appeared beautifully arrayed in a new suit, the smartest of bow-ties, and a yellow jean waistcoat. I pointed out to my Chief that it was water-throwing day, and suggested the advisability of his wearing his oldest clothes. Sir Edward gave me to understand that he imagined that few people would venture to throw water over her Britannic Majesty's representative. Off we started on foot for the Chancery of the Legation, which was situated a good mile from our house. I knew what was coming. In the first five minutes we got a bucket of water from the top of a house, plumb all over us, soaking us both to the skin. Sir Edward was speechless with rage for a minute or so, after which I will not attempt to reproduce his language. Men were selling everywhere in the streets the large squirts ("pomitos" in Spanish) which are used on these occasions. I equipped myself with a perfect Woolwich Arsenal of pomitos, but Sir Edward waved them all disdainfully away. Soon two girls darted out of an open doorway, armed with pomitos, and caught us each fairly in the face, after which they giggled and ran into their house, leaving the front door open. Sir Edward fairly danced with rage on the pavement, shouting out the most uncomplimentary opinions as to the Argentine Republic and its inhabitants. The front door having been left open, I was entitled by all the laws of Carnival time to pursue our two fair assailants into their house, and I did so, in spite of Sir Edward's remonstrances. I chased the two girls into the drawing-room, where we experienced some little difficulty in clambering over sofas and tables, and I finally caught them in the dining-room, where a venerable lady, probably their grandmother, was reposing in an armchair. I gave the two girls a thorough good soaking from my pomitos, and bestowed the mildest sprinkling on their aged relative, who was immensely gratified by the attention. "Oh! my dears," she cried in Spanish to the girls, "you both consider me so old. You can see that I am not too old for this young man to enjoy paying me a little compliment."
Autres pays, autres moeurs! Just conceive the feelings of an ordinary British middle-class householder, residing, let us say, at Balham or Wandsworth, at learning that the sanctity of "The Laurels" or "Ferndale" had been invaded by a total stranger; that his daughters had been pursued round the house, and then soaked with water in his own dining-room, and that even his aged mother's revered white hairs had not preserved her from a like indignity. I cannot imagine him accepting it as a humorous everyday incident. Our progress to the Chancery was punctuated by several more interludes of a similar character, and I was really pained on reaching the shelter of our official sanctuary to note how Sir Edward's spotless garments had suffered. Personally, on a broiling February day (corresponding with August in the northern hemisphere) I thought the cool water most refreshing. Our Chancery looked on to the fashionable Calle Florida, and a highly respectable German widow who had lived for thirty years in South America acted as our housekeeper. Sir Edward, considerably ruffled in his temper, sat down to continue a very elaborate memorandum he was drawing up on the new Argentine Customs tariff. The subject was a complicated one, there were masses of figures to deal with, and the work required the closest concentration. Presently our housekeeper, Fran Bauer, entered the room demurely, and made her way to Sir Edward's table,
"Wenn Excellenz so gut sein werden um zu entschuldigen," began Frau Bauer with downcast eyes, and then suddenly with a discreet titter she produced a large pomito from under her apron and, secure in the license of Carnival time, she thrust it into Sir Edward's collar, and proceeded to squirt half a pint of cold water down his back, retiring swiftly with elderly coyness amid an explosion of giggles. I think that I have seldom seen a man in such a furious rage. I will not attempt to reproduce Sir Edward's language, for the printer would have exhausted his entire stock of "blanks" before I had got halfway through. The Minister, when he had eased his mind sufficiently, snapped out, "It is obvious that with all this condemned (that was not quite the word he used) foolery going on, it is impossible to do any serious work to-day. Where ... where ... can one buy the infernal squirts these condemned idiots vise?" "Anywhere in the streets. Shall I buy you some, Sir Edward?" "Yes, get me a lot of them, and the biggest you can find." So we parted.
Returning home after a moist but enjoyable afternoon, I saw a great crowd gathered at the junction of two streets, engaged in a furious water-fight. The central figure was a most disreputable-looking individual with a sodden wisp of linen where his collar should have been; remnants of a tie trailed dankly down, his soaked garments were shapeless, and his head was crowned with a sort of dripping poultice. He was spouting water in all directions like the Crystal Palace fountains in their heyday, with shouts of "Take that, you foolish female; and that, you fat feminine Argentine!" With grief I recognised in this damp reveller her Britannic Majesty's Minister Plenipotentiary.
Upon returning home, we found that our two English servants had been having the time of their lives. They had stood all day on the roof of the house, dashing pails of water over passers-by until they had completely emptied the cistern. There was not one drop of water in the house, and we had to borrow three pailfuls from a complaisant neighbour.
A few years later the police prohibited water-throwing altogether, so this feature of a Buenos Ayres Carnival is now a thing of the past.
As time went on I grew very fond of Sir Edward. His temper may have flared up quickly, but it died down just as rapidly. He was a man with an extraordinarily varied fund of information, and possessed a very original and subtle sense of humour. He was also a great stylist in writing English, and the drafts I wrote for despatches were but seldom fortunate enough to meet with his approval. A split infinitive brought him to the verge of tears. The Argentine authorities were by no means easy to deal with, and Sir Edward handled them in a masterly fashion. His quiet persistence usually achieved its object. It was a real joy to see him dealing with anyone rash enough to attempt to bully or browbeat him. His tongue could sting like a lash on occasions, whilst he preserved an outward air of imperturbable calm. Sir Edward both spoke and wrote the most beautifully finished Spanish.