reality needs a new harbour, but it looks as if the present one could scarcely be altered.

It is naturally in this part of the town that you find the wretched shanties which are the first refuge of the Italian immigrants whilst waiting for an opportunity to start off again. Here is to be seen all the sordid misery of European towns with the accompaniment of the usual degrading features. I hasten to add that help—both public and private—is not lacking. The ladies of Buenos Ayres have organised different charitable works, and visit needy families; as generosity is one of the leading traits in the Argentine character, much good is done in this way. There are no external signs of the feminine degradation that disfigures our own public streets.

Why is it that this swarm of Italians should stop in crowded Buenos Ayres instead of going straight out to the Pampas, where labour is so urgently needed? I was told that the harvest frequently rots on the fields for want of reapers, and this in spite of wages that rise as high as twenty francs per day. There are a good many reasons for this. In the first place, such wages as this are only for a season of a few months or weeks. Then again, these Italian labourers complain that if they venture far from the city, they have no protection against the overbearing of officials, who are inclined to take advantage of their privileged position. I do not want to dwell on the point. The same complaints—but more detailed—reached me in Brazil. Both the Argentine and Brazilian Governments, to whom I submitted the charges brought against their representatives, protested that whenever any abuse could be proved against an agent he was proceeded against with the utmost rigour of the law. There can be no doubt as to the good faith of the authorities, who have every interest in encouraging the rapid growth of the population in the Pampas. Besides, it must be borne in mind that the elements of immigration are never of the highest quality. Still, I should not be surprised to learn that there was occasion for a stricter control in the direction I have indicated.

So far, I have said nothing of the beauties of the city. It is a pity that amongst the attractions of Buenos Ayres the sea cannot be counted. A level shore does not lend itself to decorative effect. A mediocre vegetation; water of a dirty ochre, neither red nor yellow; nothing to be found to charm the eye. So I saw the sea only twice during my stay at Buenos Ayres—once on arrival, and again when I left. During the summer heat, that section of the population which is not compelled to stay flees to Mar del Plata, the Trouville of Buenos Ayres, a charming conglomeration of beflowered villas on an ocean beach.

A perfectly healthy city. No expense has been spared to satisfy the demands of a good system of municipal sanitation. Avenues planted with trees, gardens and parks laid out to ensure adequate reserves of fresh air, are available to all, and lawns exist for youthful sports. The zoölogical and botanical gardens are models of their kind. A fine racecourse, surrounded by the green belt of foliage of the Argentine Bois de Boulogne, is known as Palermo.

A Frenchman, the genial M. Thays, well known amongst his European colleagues, has entire control of the plantations and parks of Buenos Ayres. M. Thays, who excels in French landscape gardening, takes delight in devoting his whole mind and life to his trees, his plants and flowers. He is ready at any moment to defend his charge against attacks—an attitude that is wholly superfluous, since the public of Buenos Ayres never lets slip an opportunity of testifying its gratitude to him.

Wherever he discovers a propitious site, the master-gardener plants some shoot which will one day be a joy to look upon. He has laid out and planted fine parks. He has large greenhouses at his disposal, and any prominent citizen, or any association popular or aristocratic can, for the asking, have the floral decorations needed for a fête delivered at his door by the municipal carts.

In his search after rare plants for the enrichment of his town, M. Thays has visited equatorial regions—the Argentine, Bolivia, Brazil. As his ambition vaults beyond the boundaries of Buenos Ayres, he has conceived a project, already in process of execution, of founding a great national park, as in the United States, in which all the marvels of tropical vegetation may be collected. The Falls of Iguazzu—greater and loftier than those of Niagara—would be enclosed in this vast estate on the very frontiers of Brazil.

Apart from these plans of conquest, which make him a rival of Alexander, M. Thays is a modest, affable man, who takes a good deal of trouble to look as if he had done nothing out of the common. Were I but competent I would describe the organisation of his botanical garden, which is superior to any to be found in the old continent. More amusing is it, perhaps, to follow him through the various sections in which the characteristic flora of every part of the world is well represented. The Argentine, as may be supposed, has here the larger share. Here are displayed specimens of the principal species of flora to be found in the district lying between the frozen regions of Tierra del Fuego and the Equator: the Antarctic beech, the carob palm, the québracho (rendered extraordinarily durable by the quantity of tannin it contains, and in great request for railway sleepers), walnut, and the cedar of Tucuman or of Mendoza—which, by the way, is not a cedar. It is from its wood that cigar boxes are made. It is used in the woodwork of rich houses, for it is easy to handle and highly decorative by reason of its warm colouring. Its fault is that it warps; wherever you find it in house fittings, doors and windows refuse to open or shut as they should.

But you should see M. Thays doing the honours of the ombu and the palo borracho. The ombu is the marvel of the Pampas, the sole tree which the locust refuses to touch. For this reason alone, it has been allowed to grow freely, though not even man has found a way to utilise what the voracious insects of Providence decline. For the ombu prides itself on being good for nothing. It does not even lend itself to making good firewood. It is only to look at. But that is sufficient. Imagine an object resembling the backs of antediluvian monsters, mastodons or elephants, lying in the shade of a great mass of sheltering foliage. Heavy folds in the grey rind denote a growing limb, a rounded shoulder, a gigantic head half concealed. These are the tremendous roots of the ombu, whose delight it is to issue forth from the soil in the form of astonishing animated objects. When by foot and stick you have ascertained that these living shapes are in reality mummified within a thick bark, you turn your attention to the trunk itself and find it hollow, with a crumbling surface.

Another surprise! The finger sinks into the tree, meeting only the sort of resistance that would be offered by a thin sheet of paper. And now fine powdery scales of a substance which should be wood, but, in fact, is indescribable, fall into your hand. They crumble away into an impalpable dust, which is carried off by the breeze before you have had time to examine it. Now you have the secret of the ombu. Its wood evaporates in the open air; at the same time there spring from its strangely beast-like roots young and living shoots of the parent tree. Since it is impossible to burn the non-existent, you cannot,