The pride of the Montevidean is Prado Park. He has made of it one of the fairest gardens imaginable—its lakes and rolling lawns and great variety of trees and flowering bushes, its intersecting avenues of towering eucalyptus trees rivaling Japan’s famous avenue of cryptomerias, on the road to Nikko, all give pleasure to the city’s thousands, who, like Parisians, seek the country scenes for their holiday amusements. Driving along Agraciado Road and other plane-tree-shaded avenues, the visitor reaches either of the pleasure suburbs of Colón or Pocítos. In these excursions he has an excellent opportunity to note the varied styles of architecture coming into vogue in the more progressive cities of South America; they range from the comfortable bungalow of the British residents, to that strange development of the old Spanish home (the _quinta_) in which the wealthy Spanish-Americans love to house themselves on the outskirts of the cities. Until recent years the Spanish house in town and country was bare and unlovely on the outside; its beauty and richness were confined to the interior surroundings of the _patio_; where, in feudal privacy, the family secluded itself. To-day, in the new era of civic pride and the freer association of society in the modern boulevard and café life, the adornment is extended to the outside, and the effort made, by the addition of pinnacles and towers and much delicate tinting, to add to the attractiveness of the “city beautiful.” In the business sections, of course, the modern architecture corresponds for the most part with the type seen in the great cities of Europe and North America. [Illustration: SOLIS THEATER, MONTEVIDEO.] [Illustration: CAGANCHA PLAZA, MONTEVIDEO.] In October, when the summer comes into these latitudes south of the Equator, the _quintas_ assume a most entrancing aspect. Some of them, set in the midst of gardens many acres in extent, are veritable haunts of delight. Toll has been levied upon every resource to add to their charm. The gardens are inclosed within hedges that blaze with the color of the hedge-rose, honeysuckle, bougainvillea, wistaria, and other creeping vines. Inside, forming a background, may be seen a goodly growth of ivy-covered oaks or chestnut trees. Within, nearer the fairy-like home, and in the random of artistic disorder, are many flowering bushes and trees—lilacs mingling their scent with magnolia, orange, myrtle, and mimosa—while the lawns are carpeted with a brilliant profusion of periwinkles, pansies, marigolds, arum lilies, and carnations, the whole yielding up the delights of its ever changing fragrance as the wondering guest wanders about in company with his courtly host and hostess.