Viewing page 11 of 40

This transcription has been completed. Contact us with corrections.

-11-

just across from the hotel. The rest of the morning was completely wasted, as Bill had been unable to get in touch with Dr. Marelli at La Plata, and although we had all planned to spend the day there, it was eleven o'clock before we could find out that he was not going to be there, but wanted us to come tomorrow.

     After lunching sumptuously on Moules a la Provencales, we got caught up on correspondence and notes. At this moment I am typing away in our dark, chilly little room, and wishing I were out in the sunshine seeing something of the city.

May 1 - Bueons Aires

     Today is Labor Day in Argentina. Our first indication of it was when we attempted to get a taxi on leaving the hotel in the morning. The doorman looked blank, then said, "Ah, you are very lucky!" as a bootleg cab drew up. We went to the Retiro Station, where we met Dr. andMrs. Henry, Tom Davis and Dorothy Browne, and caught a train for El Tigre. The train ride, of about 45 minutes, takes one along parallel to the shore, and past endless recreation grounds - golf, tennis and bathing. El Tigre is a little town with the same name as one branch of the river. Here is the famous delta made by the Parana flowing into the Plate, a tremendous network of river and islands, each branch with its own name.

     Literally thousands of launches, skiffs, rowboats and yachts were tied up in the stream, most of the covered with tarpaulin, as the height of the season is now over. We walked along in the bright sunshine, sat on a bench for a while and watched industrious rowers, and soberly-clad sight-seers going past in "Collectivos". In town a collectivo is one of the objectionable little buses that pursue pedestrians at every crossing; here on El Tigre it is a taxi-launch, each one marked with the name of the river it ascends. One can take a launch for an hour or a day, stopping at one of the numerous little refreshment stands for lunch if one desires. Many people have summer homes along the water's edge, and most of them have lovely gardens with green turf that comes right down to the water's edge, for of course this is sweet water.

     We lunched at El Tigre Club, eating delicious beefsteak on the Club verandah, and then hired a little open launch and rode for about an hour up the river. Autumn coloring has turned the [[tamarisk?]] trees russet and strippedthe Lombardy poplars, but with palms and evergreens and bamboo all in vivid green the landscape was like nothing I had ever seen before - a strange mixture of tropics and the temperate zone.

     We stopped at a little landing marked El Canario to call on Major andMrs. Duffy. It seems the Duffys wearied of life in town, with its endless round of cocktail parties, and bought themselves a place up here. They remodeled a chicken house to live in, and although it was nothing but a corrugated tin shack, they had fixed it up very comfortably, with two floors, electricity and running water. They have, in a little over a year, cleared about twenty acres and set out orange trees, lemons, olives, and all sorts

[[end page]]