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CHAPTER II
Montevideo--Beggars--Antonina for mate--Antonina to Buenos
Aires--The _bombelia_.
Montevideo, sister city to Buenos Aires, is the fairer of the two to
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 mate, 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.
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