WHERE A GLANCE MAY MEAN AN INSULT.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 17410, 12 December 1924, Page 12

WHERE A GLANCE MAY MEAN AN INSULT.

IN THE BOCA, BUENOS AIRES, LIFE IS VALUED CHEAPLY. The Bora. Buenos Aires, is one of tlic 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 the 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 half a crown or the coat upon his back. This may well be. for life is cheap in Argentina, whether it he on the great rolling cattle plains of the rugged "North, or in the fashionable restaurants of Buenos Aires. It was in the Boca that T first saw something of the soul of Argentina, as much, perhaps, as in the marble halls of the Jockey Club or among the picturesque horsemen of Entre Bios manoeuvring their vast herds. One Saturday, some while after midnight. I came to a cafe hard by the Pedro do Mendoza. There were assembled in that cafe all manner of men

sailors from a vessel bringing salt from Spain. Americans from a lumber boat, Norwegians. Greeks still coalbegrimed, some British seamen arrived with railway material, estimable Chinese cooks, little wrinkled grinning 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 of 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 t raised platform four musicians in shirt sleeves played. But no one danced. The proprietor explained to me that in a neigh b< ourhood where a man would draw his knife for the flicker of a woman’s eves, to encourage dancing was unwise.

The proprietor was something of a character himself, a Ole to speak seven languages, including Kaffir. He was a burly fellow gmd his barman looked pretty useful too. if trouble should arise. But rows were 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 limbs 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 tree her self ; then words were exchanged, and she turned and faced him like a. wildcat. Next moment the proprietor jumped between the pair and pinioned the girl’s hand to the knife hilt in her stacking. The barman leapt over the counter ; two other men appeared. In less than a minute the sailor was outside the cafe and the girl seated calmly in his place. The proprietor remonstrated with her mildly.

•r 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 it be in the glittering cafe restaurant Abrullah or in tlie Boca on Saturday night.