This rare phenomenon is occasionally seen in April and September at dawn. The mountain itself is invisible from Valparaiso. TO MR. In my former book, South American Travels , I made a statement relative to the pronunciation of the word "Montevideo" as follows: "Many foreigners make the mistake of pronouncing the name of the city with the accent on its penultima 'e'. Each syllable should be pronounced alike, with no distinction made as onto which syllable the accent falls.
Montevideo has its accent on the penultima. The word is derived from the Latin " Montem video " the final m in montem having been dropped to facilitate pronunciation. Its site was first discovered by Magellan in , and as the feet high dun-colored cerro , which dominates the western side of the harbor on whose shores the city is now built, appeared on the occidental horizon, somebody at the bow of the ship yelled out, "Montem video" "I see a mountain" , which words gave the city its present name.
It can be safely assumed that the man at the bow who uttered the Latin exclamation [2] was a priest or a friar because who amongst a crew of sailors and adventurers would have a knowledge of Latin unless it was a man who had taken Holy Orders?
The Spaniards and Portuguese in those days never embarked on any expedition without taking some of these gentry along. Montevideo is sometimes called "Queen of La Plata" on account of its cleanliness, haughty reserve, and aristocratic appearance; more often has it been styled "Modern Troy" due to decades of internecine strife, anarchy, revolutions, and a Ten Years' War.
Now that there has been quietude for several years, with prospects of continued peace, it is unfair to its inhabitants to liken it to the prehistoric city at the southeastern end of the Hellespont. Several times during the years and , I visited Montevideo, having made occasional trips from Buenos Aires, but an episode connected with my last advent on Uruguayan shores will take an indefinitely long time to erase it from my memory.
