look upon from the sea, having a loftier situation, and, like Buenos
Aires, boasts of many fine mansions, comely women, liberal schools, and
a cemetery of great splendour.

It is at Montevideo that the "beggar a-horse-back" becomes a verity
(horses are cheap); galloping up to you the whining beggar will implore
you, saying: "For the love of Christ, friend, give me a coin to buy
bread with."

From "the Mont" we went to Antonina, in Brazil, for a cargo of maté, a
sort of tea, which, prepared as a drink, is wholesome and refreshing. It
is partaken of by the natives in a highly sociable manner, through a
tube which is thrust into the steaming beverage in a silver urn or a
calabash, whichever may happen to be at hand when "drouthy neebors
neebors meet"; then all sip and sip in bliss from the same tube, which
is passed from mouth to mouth. No matter how many mouths there may be,
the _bombelia_, as it is called, must reach them all. It may have to be
replenished to make the drink go around, and several times, too, when
the company is large. This is done with but little loss of time. By
thrusting into the urn or gourd a spoonful of the herb, and two
spoonfuls of sugar to a pint of water, which is poured, boiling, over
it, the drink is made. But to give it some fancied extra flavour, a live
coal (_carbo vegetable_) is plunged into the potion to the bottom. Then
it is again passed around, beginning where it left off. Happy is he, if
a stranger, who gets the first sip at the tube, but the initiated have
no prejudices. While in that country I frequently joined in the social
rounds at maté, and finally rejoiced in a _bombelia_ of my own.

The people at Antonina (in fact all the people we saw in Brazil) were
kind, extremely hospitable, and polite; living in thrift generally,