The traveller who approaches Buenos Ayres, after having seen Rio and Montevideo, will probably experience a little disappointment, when he first catches sight of the city, for its fame far transcends its appearance when viewed from the deck of an incoming steamer. The journey up the muddy river is uninteresting, and, but for the buoys that mark the fourteen miles of dredged channel, has no features to distinguish it from the English Channel on a calm day. At night, when lit up by its innumerable lights, the city presents a more imposing spectacle from the river, for the vast area that it covers is then apparent. In the daytime the low-lying metropolis is relieved by only a few outstanding buildings, the lemon-shaped dome of the Congress Buildings being the most conspicuous. Its straight streets are set at right angles, and through the centre of the city runs the magnificent Avenida de Mayo, lined with magnificent buildings of many styles, shaded by tall trees, and at night brilliantly lighted by electric standards. It is in the “Avenida” that you receive the best impression of the city’s importance. Stand at any point of this great boulevard, your mind receives the impression that you have reached the centre of a State which has in a remarkably short space of time risen to be one of the most important countries of the New World. But the majority of the streets of this vast city are still the long, narrow lanes which the early designers laid out, and they offer dreary vistas of interminable length. Although most of the buildings that line them are new and stately, and have fronts which betoken the wealth of the builders, they are rather ostentatious, and become wearying after a short time. But there are many notable buildings in the city which are worthy of the city’s importance. The Government buildings in the Plaza de Mayo, the Houses of Congress, the numerous hotels, the Cathedral, the Bolsu, and the sumptuous quarters of the Jockey Club compare favourably with similar institutions in other parts of the world. Moreover, the homes of the wealthy landowners, merchants, are veritable palaces, sumptuously furnished, and even persons of lesser estate reside in houses of great beauty and luxury. Clubs are plentiful, and provide for the various nationalities who form colonies in the city. When one considers the fact [Illustration]