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by the tortuous course of the Strait. We are now in the Atlantic Ocean, which here at least proves much more Pacific than its western brother. A southerly wind keeps us company from this point for three full days, and after leaving Cape Virgins astern we glide away at the rate of thirteen knots an hour, and see no more land till we catch a faint distant glimpse of the low-lying Cape Corrientes. Twelve hours after we pass this point the Cerro of Monte Video is sighted right ahead. We have entered the sealike Plata,' and in four hours more we are lying at anchor outside the harbour of the capital of the Uruguayan Republic.

CHAPTER XXVII.

THE BANDA ORIENTAL.

FROM no point does Monte Video look so well as from the roadstead to the south of it. Our vessel anchors, among a number of other vesssls of large tonnage, at a distance of about two miles from the shore, outside the sheltered but shallow harbour which runs into the land to the north-west of the city. So while we wait for the health-officer to come on board and untie the red-tape knot which detains us, we have ample time for gaining a favourable impression of the place before entering it.

The city is built on a promontory of rising ground, the streets and houses running up from the river on one side, and from the harbour on the other, and finding a sort of apex in the towers of the cathedral. In this respect it reminds us of the appearance of Valetta rising up from the Great and the Quarantine Harbour on either side of it, with the church of St. John's at its summit.

As in Valetta, too, the houses of Monte Video are of a fresh sandy colour, or whitewashed, and built of brick and plaster. On the south-east side of the city the mass of houses ends with the white dome of the cemetery chapel, standing in the midst of a garden of cypress, and other dark-green trees; beyond lies a tolerably verdant and well-wooded country. On the north-west of the city, as has been mentioned, lies the harbour, a semicircular bay

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sweeping in behind the promontory on which the city stands, large enough, but not deep enough, to hold all the shipping which is ever likely to visit the port. On the side of the harbour opposite to the city rises the Cerro, a hill five hundred feet in height, surmounted by a small fort and a lighthouse. This Cerro, with the site of the city, forms all the high ground visible: the rest of the coast, both up and down the river, is flat and low.

We are carried ashore in one of the large broad-beamed boats-whose seaworthy qualities are often tested here when a westerly or south-westerly Pampero' comes sweeping down and across the river with its tremendous gusts and its accompanying troubled sea-and land inside the harbour, close to the quay of the Custom-house. We spend a week inside the city, though had we merely wished to see the place,' in the ordinary sense of the term, a much shorter time would have sufficed. An hour's walk through some of the principal streets, and a panoramic view from the cathedral tower, or from one of the 'miradores' (look-outs) which rise from many of the 'azoteas' (flat roofs) of the better class of houses, would exhaust all the outward sights' of Monte Video.

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The city has a general look of freshness and cleanliness; the streets are broad and straight, and all cut each other at right angles; from any of the cross-streets, which. run down from the higher part of the city towards the harbour or the river, pleasant views are obtainable of the water, of the Cerro, or of the open country to the north, thus driving away that feeling of being 'cribbed and confined' which is felt more or less in most cities. The principal streets are lined with good shops, kept chiefly by French or German people; and the city can boast more than one spacious Plaza. Of good public buildings, however, the capital of the Banda Oriental is much in lack. The Matriz,

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