MONTEVIDEO, San Felipe ySantiago de, the capital of the republic of Uruguay (Banda Oriental) in South America, lies on the eastern side of a nearly semicircular bay on the northern shore of the estuary of the La Plata, 120 miles from Buenos Ayres, with which communication is maintained by a daily service of steamers. The small peninsula on which the city is built does not rise more than 95 feet above the level of the sea; but the headland of Cerro, 505 feet high, which forms the western side of the bay, is notable enough on that low-lying coast to justify the name Montevideo; it is crowned by a lighthouse, and by an old Spanish fort, once of considerable strength. About 620 acres is the area occupied by the city proper; the suburbs stretch for miles into the country. The plan both of the old and the new town is regular; they are separated by the Calle de la Ciudadela on the line of the old ramparts. A somewhat Oriental appearance is produced by the low houses with their flat terraced roofs and miradors or watchtowers, from which the merchants look out for ships. As a whole, the city is overbuilt, and immense wealth has been squandered in Italian marbles and other forms of architectural decoration. The streets are for the most part well paved, and there is an extensive tramway system. Mare’s grease was for some time employed to make gas for lighting; but an epidemic having commenced at the gas-yard the works were for a time closed, and when they were reopened coal-gas was substituted. Previous to 1870, when water was introduced from a distance of 40 miles, the whole supply was dependent on the rainfall. In the old town the principal square is the Plaza de la Constitucion, the south side of which contains the “cathedral,” and the north side the cabildo (law-courts, ...senate-house, and prison). The cathedral (as it is usually called, though the bishop is a bishop in partibus, and takes his title from Megaera in Asia Minor) is a somewhat imposing building, consecrated 21st October 1804, with a dome and two side towers 133 feet high, which form one of the best landmarks of the bay. In the line of the old ramparts formerly stood the old Spanish citadel, which was built by the seven years’ forced labour of 2000 Guarani Indians. From 1835 to 1868 it served as the principal market in the city; in 1877 it was removed and the area united with the fine Plaza de la Independencia at the south-western end of the Calle del 18 Julio, a broad street which runs in a straight line right through the new town. The new market, covering 2 acres, was built in 1867 at a cost of £86,000, and there are besides the Port market (cost £55,320) and the Mercado Chico. The exchange, constructed after the style of the house at Bordeaux, dates from 1864, and cost £32,000. Of note also are the custom-house, the post office (1866), the museum, the public library (founded in 1830 by Dr J. Μ. Perez Castellano), the university (dating from 1849), the Solis theatre (1856), the British hospital (established in 1857, present building 1867), the Hospital de Caridad (founded by Francisco A. Macil in 1825), having an average of 300 patients, the new lunatic asylum (1877), the Basque church (1858), and the English church (1845), built on the site of a battery taken in 1807 by Sir Samuel Auchmuty’s forces. Since the beginning of the century the depth of water in the bay has been allowed to diminish 5 feet, and the area has been reduced by the construction (1868) of an embankment to carry the railway across it. Dredging has been tried from time to time, but on too limited a scale. The so-called harbour is a space of less than half a mile square off the north-west face of the town; in 1870 it was reported to be yearly becoming smaller and less safe, and vessels are now obliged to anchor farther out. Among modern improvements in the port the most noteworthy are the Maua dry docks, opened in 1873, and the larger docks, erected in 1877 at a cost of 2,000,000 dollars, at the foot of the Cerro on the other side of the bay. The trade of Montevideo consists mainly in the export of the raw products of the slaughter-house (horns, hides, hair, tallow, wool, bones), with a certain quantity of live stock and preserved meat, and in the import of European manufactures. During the five years 1877-1881 the average value of the exports was £2,303,061, and that of the imports £3,469,997. Of the 1044 vessels (tonnage 780,870) which entered in 1879, 285 were English, 157 Spanish, 145 Italian, 112 German, and 99 French. The population is largely of foreign origin, Italian, Spanish, Basque, and French. In 1874 the Italians, who had rapidly increased after the siege, were about 40,000 strong, and in several quarters of the city nothing was to be heard save North-Italian dialects. Even in 1880, after the exodus caused by the confiscations of 1875, they numbered 36,300. The greater proportion are engaged as petty traders. In 1879 the total population of the town was 73,879; it had been 92,260 in 1878, and 105,296 in 1871, and now (1883), including the environs, is 110,167.
Montevideo owes its origin not to the commercial advantages of its position but to the jealousy of the Spaniards towards the Portuguese, which led Zabala, viceroy of Buenos Ayres, to erect a fort at this point in 1717. In 1726 the first settlers were introduced from the Canary Islands and Andalusia, and more than fifty years passed before the settlement was declared a port; but by 1781 it had 6460 inhabitants, and by 1792 was importing to the value of 2,993,267 dollars, and exporting to the value of 4,150,523. In 1808 the governor of Montevideo was the first to revolt against the Spanish authorities, and to establish an independent junta; twenty years later, after much disastrous confusion and conflict, the city became the recognized capital of the newly-formed republic of Banda Oriental. Its population, which had been about 36,000 at the opening of the century, was reduced to 9000 by 1829; and it had hardly recovered its ground in this respect (31,189) when, in 1843, Rosas, dictator of Buenos Ayres, wishing to compel annexation to Buenos Ayres, commenced the siege which was irregularly maintained till 1852, and left the city and the country exhausted and almost ruined. By 1860, however, the population had increased to 49,548; and though the Brazilians blockaded the port in 1864-5 and reinstated ex-president Flores the prosperity of the place was but little impaired. During the Paraguayan war, which lasted till 1864, Montevideo grew rapidly rich, attracting a large share of the trade diverted from Buenos Ayres. Immigrants flocked from all quarters, and excessive investments were made in all kinds of real property. The valuation of the city and suburbs, which was 14,156,000 dollars in 1860, reached the sum of 74,000,000 dollars in 1872. Reckless speculation, political dissension, and the financial mismanagement of the Government have told heavily; the value of house property has greatly diminished, and commercial activity has been grievously restricted. Since 1881, however, Montevideo has been rapidly recovering, and its natural advantages are so great that, with better political circumstances, a future of yet higher prosperity may be anticipated.
Notices of Montevideo will be found in Bonelli, Travels in Bolivia, <fcc., 1854; Hadtield 1 Brasil, the River Plate, <fcc., 1854, and his supplemental volume, 1868; Mulhall, Handbook of the River Plate Republics, 1874; and Gallenga, South America, 1881. See also Brignardello, Delle vicende dell' America merid. e specialm. di Montevideo nell' Uruguay, Genoa, 1879; The Republic of Uruguay, 1883; the reports of the municipal junta, and Vaillants statistical publications.
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