This building, which ranks with the fine opera houses of the world, was opened May 25, 1908, replacing an earlier theater of the same name.

house, she would discreetly send a messenger to Señorita C with the news, so that she could call with every appearance of innocence.

The répertoire of the 1832 season of the Teatro Argentino included Otello, Cenerentola, and the Barber of Seville. The chorus had been recruited from among the Italian residents who graciously consented to leave their shoemakers' benches before the usual time.

As for the theater, it is interesting to note that Shakespearean subjects were not unknown in Buenos Aires after 1824. Mr. Love, editor of The British Packet, perhaps the first English-language paper published in that city, wrote in 1825: "Othello is performed every once in a while; not Shakespeare's Othello, but a Spanish translation from the French, full of absurdities that an Englishman provided with the average amount of patience could not tolerate."

At this period a revolution in fashion attacked what seemed to many the very foundations of Buenos Aires society. Women declared their independence from Spanish fashions, and mantillas and high combs were banished. The influence of French couturiers upon Argentine femininity was in the ascendant, much to the discomfort of

the old-fashioned. Sedate matrons and young ladies waited anxiously for the arrival of mail packets with the latest novelties from Paris.

The Spanish dress had been relatively short, as dresses went in that genteel age. The French invasion lengthened it considerably, adding innumerable frills, ribbons, and furbelows. Petticoats varied in number from 1 to 14 or 16. Sleeves were of the balloon type, stuffed with wool, cotton, or other material. Opera pumps were the rage. Hair dressing attained a perfection as complex as the most ambitious coiffeur of to-day could desire. Artificial curls were sometimes glued at the temples, to increase the devastating power of feminine charm. Another revolution was also under

way at the time: The hospitality of the home was giving way to a newfangled institution-the hotel. The large modern hostelries of Buenos Aires, exponents of sanitary plumbing, private baths, de luxe suites (and de luxe bills), evoke the memory of the pioneers in the field, the Englishmen Faunch, Keen, and Smith, and the enterprising and energetic American Mrs. Thorn. Theirs were the hotels whose clientèle was the élite, both Argentine and foreign; for narrow nationalism did not exist, immigration had not yet brought thousands of European laborers into Buenos Aires, and foreigners were well received. in the most exclusive circles.

Catering to the poorer classes were the fondas, which managed to make themselves highly conspicuous by the spicy odor-perceptible at

Reproduced from an illustration dated 1832.

quite a distance-of their viands; from these inns there issued at night strains played on the guitar, drawling provincial accents, and not infrequently the sound of clashing knives.

Faunch's Hotel was the most fashionable place for a number of years. It was there that a great celebration took place on January 22, 1825, to commemorate the battle of Ayacucho, the fal victory of South America over Spain. The consular corps joined in the festivities. Mr. Poussett, the British vice consul, was seen arm in arm with Mr. Slocum, his American colleague. "Fifty years ago," says Mr. Love in The British Packet of that date, "such an occurrence would have been considered fantastic-a British consul joining with a consul of

MONUMENT TO CAESAR AUGUSTUS RODNEY IN BUENOS AIRES As a tribute to the first United States Minister to Argentina, who died in Buenos Aires in 1824, the Argentine Government erected this memorial in St. John's Anglican Church.

England's former colony in a celebration of the independence of another part of the American continent."

It was also at Faunch's that the Argentine Government had given, the May before, an official banquet in honor of Mr. Rodney, to which 127 persons were invited. It was the last function that he attended, for he died suddenly 15 days later, still in the prime of life, highly popular, and beloved by all who knew him. At his very impressive funeral the funeral coach, or hearse, such as is still used in Buenos Aires, made its first appearance.

The Argentine Government issued the following decree on the day of his death:

June 10, 1824: The death of Mr. Cæsar Augustus Rodney, minister plenipotentiary of the United States, has produced in the mind of the Government of Buenos Aires all the regret which is inspired by the loss to his country of such a distinguished citizen, and to all America of a jealous defender of its rights, especially connected with the Provinces of the River Plate.

The Government, therefore, desirous of giving a public testimony of this regret and of the regard it has for him, has enacted and decreed:

1. That the Government shall erect, as a proof of its gratitude, a funeral monument where the remains of the Hon. Cæsar Augustus Rodney will rest. 2. The cost of the monument shall be covered by funds from the appropriation for discretional expenses of the Government.

HERAS.

MANUEL JOSÉ GARCIA.

OVER THE ANDES TO THE AMAZON

Mc

By GRAHAM M. KER

Y wife and I sailed from New York, passed through the Panama Canal, and disembarked at the Peruvian seaport of Callao, en route by steamer, rail, auto, and airplane to Iquitos. About this city on the Amazon the axe of the mahogany exporter is blazing the way to a possible return of prosperity, now lost to the jungle, but at its peak in those days two decades ago when wild rubber commanded such fabulous prices in the markets of the world.

From Callao an automobile ride of 7 miles took us to Lima, the capital, founded by the Spanish conquerors nearly a century before our own settlement at Jamestown.

Lima, "the City of Kings," is a fascinating medley of the past and the present. Here, for example, stands the former hall of the Inquisition, now the Senate Chamber, the exquisitely carved woodwork of its interior equaled only by that of the famous old Torre Tagle Palace, the present home of the Ministry of Foreign Relations. There rises the ornately carved façade of the church of San Augustín, one of the loveliest in the Americas. The University of San Marcos, probably the oldest institution of its kind in the Western Hemisphere, proudly traces its origin to a royal decree of 1551. Yet down in the newer part of the city rise strikingly handsome buildings of modern design. and construction. And everywhere flowers grow in the greatest profusion.

But it was not with Lima that we were concerned, charming though she is. We were bound for the mighty Amazon. A glance at a relief map of South America will show where the various ranges of the Andes converge in Peru, forming a narrow barrier between the West Coast and the Amazon Basin. This great mountain wall, towering to tremendous heights, now lay across our path.

The morning after our arrival in Lima we continued on our way, comfortably watching the charming landscape from the train as it left the narrow coastal plain and plunged into the rocky gorges of the sierra, worming its way upward toward the summit. We had been cautioned against soroche, the peculiar sickness affecting travelers in the high altitudes; therefore, although feeling perfectly well and enjoying the trip, we let the lunch hour go by unobserved.

By noon we had risen to an altitude of 10,000 feet. Ascending as we did through rock-walled canyons, at times seemingly insurmountable cliffs rose before us to bar our way. By zigzag paths cut into