Outside these main streets the pattern of the town has been left much to the discretion of its most lowly inhabitants. Buildings composed of unexpected material sprout up from the earth in unexpected places. Earth, boards, tin, and fragments of stone are amongst the commonest of these, although there are a certain number, stiffened by bricks, whose comparatively commonplace exterior looks smug and respectable by the side of the rest. Mounting upwards, the architecture of the outskirts comes as something of a relief, since its simplicity is crude and absolute to the point of excluding any jarring possibilities. The ranchos here are composed of nothing beyond loose fragments of rock piled one on top of the other, with an odd hole here and there that serves for window or door, frequently for both. At one point in the midst of these primitive stone dwellings a small group of scantily clothed boys are playing football, the implement of their game being an old sheepskin rolled into the nearest imitation to a globe to which its folds will consent and held together roughly with string--one more instance of the spreading triumph of football, that wonderful game that seems to conquer its surroundings and to implant itself firmly throughout the world entire. The turf slopes of the Cerro itself are all about one now. From the distance they had appeared of an unbroken green, but when actually approached the broken patches of bare rock upon their surface become evident. The last of the stone shanties are not only contrived upon one of these, but constructed from the very site upon which they repose. The result is a difficulty to distinguish between the natural rock and the habitable flakes. The short turf of the wind-swept Cerro is innocent of blossoms save for the ubiquitous verbena, a few stunted tobacco flowers, and some other lowly blooms. Upon the very summit, where the rock breaks out boldly and piles itself in jagged heaps, is a picturesque fort, from the midst of whose walls of solid masonry rises the dome of the light that guides the ships into the harbour below. The panorama that opens itself out from this point is not a little remarkable. On the one side lies the bay of Montevideo, thickly dotted with its steamers and sailing vessels, with the towers and streets of the capital spreading far inland upon the opposite shore. Beyond this, again, are the undulations of the hills, the coastline, and the ocean that shines brilliantly, although it is only dimly blue. On the other hand stretches the River Plate, whose waters are deepening their yellow as they extend towards the landless horizon, beneath which lies Buenos Aires and Argentina.