THE BOCA

Evening Star, Issue 18808, 5 December 1924, Page 5

THE BOCA

/HERE A GLANCE MAY MEAN AN INSULT. Tho Boca, Buenos Aires, is one of the most strangely fascinating places in the world (writes Arthur Mills in the ‘Daily Mail’). Seafaring men in Sydney, Marseilles, and along the wharves of the London docks will talk of it; but tin casual visitor to Buenos Aires, speaking no Spanish and wearing a presentable- suit, cannot go there, for in the Boca, they say, a man may lose his life for hah a crown or the coat upon his back. Tim may well be, for life is cheap in Argentina, whether it be on the great, rollin', cattle plains of the rugged North or in tin fashionable restaurants of Buenos Aires. It was in the Boca that 1 first saw something of the soul of Argentina, as much, perhaps, as in the marble halls of tinJockey Club or among the picturesque horsemen of Entre Rios manoeuvring their va-st herds.

One Saturday, some while niter midnight, I came to a cafe hard by the Pedn de Mendoza. There were assembled in that cafe all manner or men—sailors from a vessel bringing salt from Spain, Americans from a lumber boat, Norwegians. Greeks still coal-begrimed, some British seamen arrived with railway material, c.ytiraablo Chinese cooks, little wrinkled grin, ning Japanese, Italians, Syrians, Russians, Bolshevist and aristocrat alike concealed beneath tattered coats and a week's growth of stubbly beard—some looking for work, some avoiding it—the pariah dogs ol a hundred ports. Across the rubbish-littered road the ships that had brought these men lay at anchor in an endless stretching belt, themselves evidence of the mighty needs of the great South American capital. On a raised platform four musicians in shirt sleeves played. But no one danced. Tho proprietor explained to mo that in a neighborhood where a man would draw Ids knife for the flicker of a woman’s eyes, to encourage dancing was unwise. The proprietor was something of a character himself, able to speak seven languages, including Kaffir. He was n burly fellow, and- his barman looked pretty useful, too, if trouble should arise. But rows wei;o avoided, the proprietor explained, pointing to two men in plain clothes in either corner of the room, ready to signal to him the first sign of an angry glance. As we talked a girl passed. She had- dark, luminous eyes, swung her shapely lunbs with the smoothness of motions, and carried herself with an air of easy grace, the special inheritance of her people. A burly Scandinavian- sailor, a blue clout knotted beneath a red beard, caught her arm. She tried to free herself; then words were exchanged, and she turned and faced firm like a wild cat. Next moment the proprietor jumped between the pair and pinioned the girl’s hand to the knife hilt in her stocking. The barman leapt over the counter; two othei men appeared. In loss than a minute the sailor was outside the cafe and the girseated calmly in his place. The proprietor remonstrated with her mildly. “ I am Argentine,” she said, snapping the syllable—a reply that appeared wholly satisfactory' to all concerned; for they are a proud people, the Argentines, who gave a swift- answer for an insult, whether ii bo in the glittering cafe restaurant Abdullah or in the Boca on Saturday night.