Our time at Montevideo was spent in collecting articles of equipment, provisions, and general supplies, for the use of the expedition in the icy antarctic. For this purpose the city affords many advantages, since nearly all foreign goods can be obtained at very moderate prices, and the local production of fresh provisions are both limitless and cheap. Under the guidance of our thoughtful Belgian friends, we were offered every facility to enjoy the warm hospitality of the place, and to accomplish quickly the objects of our visit. And although we were anchored here less than three days, we were able to complete our mission, and see a few of the local characteristics. The stores are everywhere well stocked with domestic and foreign goods, and if the buyer is able to speak English or French he will have little difficulty in being understood. The streets are wide, regular, and well paved with granite blocks. Tram-ways afford ample but slow transit. Carriages are numerous, and can be obtained at a very moderate cost. Somewhat irregularly scattered throughout the city are small parks with neat arrangements of tropical and semi-tropical plants. The greatest attention, however, seems to be given not to flowery decorations, but to the systematic adjustment of wide promenades. It does not take a party of young bachelors, such as the “personnel” of the _Belgica_, very long to discover the side of life with which these promenades are always closely related. Indeed, we soon found out, without assistance, the reason for their great width in proportion to the size of the park--a cause which was to us a never-ceasing pleasure. For we all arrived independently at the conclusion that this feature of the city must be due to the remarkable number and variety of strikingly beautiful women in Montevideo, and their desire to display their qualities to male admirers. So far as my limited experience goes, there is no street or promenade in the world which can offer so large a number of charming young women, in a given group and in a given time, as these palmy promenades of Montevideo. We found it difficult to assign a tangible reason for this attractiveness. It was not in the dress, for the costume was that of nearly all the civilised world. It was not in the form, in the colour of the hair, in the carriage, or in any noticeable art of manner; for all of these characteristics were comparable to those of the refined women of New York, Paris, or London. But in addition to perfection in all these matters there was about them an indescribable something, which made every woman on sight appear to be able to speak her own ideas and the meditations of her admirers in the tongues of the observer, be he French, English, German, Spanish, or what not. Perhaps we were too much absorbed to have discriminating powers; but for this we should be pardoned, for it was about the last glance we had of women, beautiful or otherwise, during four hundred long, wintry days.