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RIDING IN A COACH

the reverse. This passing notice gives you no adequate idea of the horrors of the roads, during winter, which lead out of Buenos Ayres; but at another time we may have occasion to speak of them more particularly.

Through such roads as we have sketched, Mr. Fair sent off to us, as soon as he got to Buenos Ayres, a coach drawn by six stout mules; but they could not make out the journey that day. The coach was with us, however, early the following day, relay mules had been left half way, and we left in high spirits immediately after breakfast.

We soon found, however, that we were in a much more dangerous situation in the coach than Mr. E. was on the chacarera's pillion horse. The roads were everywhere inundated; the pantanos were hidden under the surface of the waters; so that our mules plunged and floundered, and our crazy old vehicle reeled from one side to another, every moment threatening to lay its bones on one of the many soft beds over which it was dragged.

Mr. E. was so much at home in a coach, that all our joltings and heavings were regarded by him with utter indifference; indeed he laughed in his turn at our fears of an upset. It turned out,

PREFERABLE TO HORSEMANSHIP.

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however, that they were not at all imaginary, but that, whether by land or by sea, we were doomed to rough usage in our expedition from the San José to Buenos Ayres. Our muleteers having plunged into a continuous sheet of water after we had proceeded about two leagues, as we emerged from it one wheel of the coach came upon a hidden mound, the other sank under its shelving side,the vehicle got poised up on one side,-Mr. E.'s goodly weight slid over to the other, the balance was irretrievably lost,-and down we came. Luckily none of us were much hurt; the drivers opened the upper door, out of which we contrived to crawl, well drenched and mudded. After an hour's labour our vehicle was righted, and having dried ourselves in the sun, we jumbled along without farther mishap. Shortly after we were met by a gallant array of our friends, who, headed by Fair, had come out to give us the meeting; and by them we were escorted through the streets to Mr. Fair's house, our adventures serving to enliven the evening, which we all spent merrily together.

You will allow that there is a somewhat striking difference between a voyage from the Guasú to San

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RIDING IN A COACH.

Ysidro in a sailing boat, followed up by a carriage journey thence to Buenos Ayres,—and a trip by a steamer from Havre to Southampton, and thence by railroad to London.

Your's, &c.

THE AUTHORS.

LETTER XXVI.

THE AUTHORS to GENERAL MILLER.

Great Change for the better, wrought by the Revolution in Buenos Ayres-The Porteños try to please John Bull-Their Abstemiousness rather against this-The pleasure of dwelling in large CitiesPolitical Importance not desired by Country Folks-Advantages of Society on a large Scale-Miseries of it on a small one.

AFTER a few days careless recreation, we naturally looked around us to see the improvements which, since 1810, had been effected, not so much by the revolution, as by the intercourse, consequent upon that revolution, of natives with foreigners.

Those improvements were not only obvious, but very striking. Everybody was dressed better, everybody lived better than before. There was an evident increase of courtesy, and decrease of distrust on all hands. The interior decoration of the houses was remarkably improved; the capital of the native merchants, through foreign trade, was evidently augmenting; and whereas the old Spaniards had been a year or two before the only depositaries of the wealth of the country, and of the confidence of

68 GREAT CHANGE IN BUENOS AYRES.

foreigners, they were now in process of being gradually superseded in these important trusts by their creole children. Young men who had never dreamt, under the old regime, of rising in the world, and only thought of the best means of raising money, to be spent in dissipation, were now standing forth in the capacity of great commission agents, or enterprizing speculators. Then for the European priests, they were almost out of sight; and their places were occupied by natives of the soil. It was the same with the lawyers; and the estancieros, almost exclusively creoles, were the most rising men in the country. The Spaniards were fast fading into insignificance, or in a course of passive amalgamation with the new order of things; the most splendid and capacious habitations, which they had built at an uncountable cost, were rented by English merchants; men of the John Bull breed, and who all, more or less, carrying out with them. John Bull's love of comfort, diffused among the people John Bull's love of hospitality, showed how little John Bull cared about expence, or even extravagance. This begot among the South Americans. a relish for luxuries, of which they never before dreamt, and consequently led them into an expence,

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