the remains of this specimen to those previously discovered, although
of a much smaller size, I was induced to believe that they belonged to
a younger animal of the same species; other persons, however, who have
since had an opportunity of comparing them with recent specimens of
the dasypus family, have suggested that it is more probable that they
belonged to a gigantic armadillo. Such is the belief entertained, I am
told, at Paris, where casts of the bones in question have been sent.
The other skeleton, found at Las Averias, was described to be as large
as that of the megatherium. It lay in a bed of hard clay, on the side
of the lake of Las Averias, partly exposed to view by the action of
the water against it in stormy weather. Here a large portion of the
shell appeared in a perfect state, and the country people, who took
Mr. Oakley to the spot, assured him that, when first discovered, it
was at least twelve feet in length, and from four to six in depth. It
was very hard, but could not be got out whole. Mr. Oakley, however,
brought away some considerable portions of it, which, in this instance,
became harder the longer they were exposed to the external air. Not so
the bones within, which, like those at Villanueva, almost immediately
mouldered away on being taken out of the earth. A very imperfect
fragment of the pelvis only reached Buenos Ayres.
On my return to England I exhibited these remains at the Geological
Society, and afterwards made them over to the Royal College of
Surgeons, whose collection of comparative anatomy is by far the finest
in this country. Mr. Clift, the curator of that collection, undertook
to describe them, and his paper upon them will be found in the
"Transactions of the Geological Society for 1835." Casts of them, which
were made at my desire, were also deposited in other museums, abroad as
well as at home. Sir Francis Chantrey was kind enough to superintend
the making of them, and to a simple suggestion of his, a solution of
linseed-oil and litharge,[47] with which they were very thoroughly
saturated, may be ascribed their restoration to a state hardly to be
distinguished from that of the most recent bone.
Dr. Buckland, the learned professor of geology at Oxford, has since
made the megatherium the subject of a chapter in his "Bridgewater
Treatise," wherein he has fully described the remarkable peculiarities
of its structure, in which, as he observes, it exceeds its nearest
living congeners in a greater degree than any other known fossil
animal. With the head and shoulders of a sloth, it combined, in its
legs and feet, an admixture of the characters of the ant-eater, the
armadillo, and the chlamyphorus: the latter it probably still further
resembled in being cased with a bony coat of armour. Measuring the
bones only, its haunches were more than five feet wide;[48] its thigh
bone was twice the thickness of that of the largest elephant; the fore
foot was a yard in length, and terminated by a gigantic claw; the tail,
the width of the upper part of which was at least two feet, and which
was probably clad in armour, must have been infinitely larger than
that of any other known beast, amongst extinct or living mammalia.
The whole body, according to the learned professor's calculations,
was about eight feet in height, and twelve in length.[49] The annexed
plate, carefully drawn from the original bones, under Mr. Clift's
superintendence, will serve not only to give a general idea of the
strange structure of this extraordinary monster, but to show the parts
which are still wanting to make up the specimen. I will only add that,
if any of those parts should fall into the hands of a casual collector,
he will render a service to science by transmitting them to the curator
of the College of Surgeons in London.
[Illustration: MEGATHERIUM.
_Note: The Parts uncoloured are wanting._
_Scale of 3 feet 3/8 of an Inch to a foot._]
FOOTNOTES:
[46] With respect _to the past_, it is, I fear, useless to look for
any very positive data as to the state of the river previously to the
last century:--the only allusion to it which I can find is in the
'Argentina,' an historical poem by Barco Centenera, who went out in
1572 with the Adelantado Zarate, and who, speaking of its depth between
Buenos Ayres and San Gabriel, off Colonia, on the opposite shore,
says:--
"De ancho nueve leguas ó mas tiene
El rio por aqui, _y muy hondable_.
La nave hasta aqui segura viene
Que como el ancho mar es navigable."
The river's here nine leagues or more,
_And very deep_, twixt shore and shore;
_So far the navigation's free,
As tho' twere on the open sea_.
ARGENTINA, CANTO II.
And although, perhaps, a poet's authority to not the very best for a
geological fact, I have the less hesitation in quoting his couplet,
as it is, to a certain extent, corroborated by the circumstance that,
amongst all the dangers and disasters recorded with so much minuteness
by the historians of the first discoveries of those parts, there is no
instance, that I am aware of, mentioned by them of a shipwreck in the
river below San Gabriel, the port to which all vessels at that time
directed their course after entering it:--from this I think any one
who knows the dangers of the navigation of that part of the river now,
will be disposed to infer that it really must have been in former times
as Centenera describes it, much more free and safe than it is at the
present day:--it is probable that the Ortiz bank especially has very
much increased.
[47] In the proportion of an ounce of litharge to a quart of oil.
[48] The following comparative measurements of the bones of the
megatherium and of an elephant eleven feet high, are furnished by Mr.
Clift:--
ELEPHANT. MEGATHERIUM.
Ft. In. Ft. In.
The expansion of the ossa ilia 3 8 5 1
Breadth of the largest caudal vertebra 0 7 1 9
Circumference of middle of femur 1 0 2 2
Length of the os calcis 0 7-1/2 1 5
[49] Mr. Clift quotes a MS. memorandum in his possession, stating the
measurement of the skeleton at Madrid to be, from the front of the
nasal bones to the setting on of the tail, thirteen feet seven inches,
and he is of opinion that, of the two, the specimen I brought home was
the older and somewhat larger individual.
CHAPTER XI.
OF THE RIVERS PARAGUAY, PARANA, AND URUGUAY.
Importance of the rivers of the United Provinces. The Paraguay
and its tributaries. The Pilcomayo. The Vermejo. Soria's
expedition down it from Oran, proving it navigable
thence to Assumption. Periodical inundations of the
Paranã, similar to those of the Nile. The Uruguay and
its affluents. Surveys by the Commissioners appointed to
determine the Boundaries laid down by the Treaty between
Spain and Portugal of 1777. Original Maps obtained.
Before proceeding to give any account of the Upper Provinces, a brief
description will perhaps here not be out of place of the great rivers
which form so remarkable a feature in the physical geography of this
part of the South American continent, and from the navigation of which
by steam-vessels hereafter such important political consequences may be
anticipated.
Of these, the Paraguay is the first. This river, which from Corrientes
takes the name of Paranã, has its sources between south lat. 13°
and 14°, in those ranges which, though of very trifling elevation
themselves, appear to connect the lofty mountains of Peru and Brazil,
and to constitute the water-shed of some of the principal rivers of
South America. From their northern declivities descend some of the
most important of the eastern affluents of the Madera, the Tapajos,
and other great streams which empty themselves into the Maranon, or
Amazons; whilst, on the other hand, all those which pour down towards
the south find their way into the bed of the wonderful river I am
describing.
Many navigable streams join it from the eastward, as it passes through
the rich Brazilian territories of Matto Grosso and Cuyabá. Its
tributaries from the opposite side are, though perhaps more important,
less numerous, the surface of the country being more level; of these
the Jaurú is the first of any consequence, the sources of which are
close to those of the Guaporé, which runs in the opposite direction
into the Madera and Amazons. The short portage which intervenes between
the heads of these rivers is all that breaks a continuous water-course
from the mouths of the Amazons to that of the Plata, as will be seen
on reference to the map. A little below the Jaurú commences a wide
region of swamps called the lake or lakes of Xarayes; which, during the
periodical inundations of the rivers that descend from the mountains
to the north of Cuyabá, is flooded for a vast extent, the waters
forming one great inland sea, to the depth of ten or twelve feet,
extending between 200 and 300 miles east and west, and upwards of 100
from north to south. As the rainy season passes away, this mass of
waters is finally carried off by the Paraguay, which even here, 1200
miles in a direct line from the sea, is navigable for vessels of 40
or 50 tons. The mouth of the Jaurú is in 16° 25´ long. 320° 10´ east
of Ferro:--here a marble pyramid is erected to mark the boundary
determined upon between the Spaniards and Portuguese by the treaty of
1750.
Quiroga, who accompanied Flores, the Spanish commissioner, to determine
this point, in descending the Paraguay fixed the latitude of most of
the numerous rivers which fall into it before its junction with the
Paranã.[50] On the eastern side they afford the means of communication
with the gold and diamond districts of Brazil, and lower down with
those districts of Paraguay proper which abound in the finest timber,
and produce the yerba maté, the article perhaps most in demand of all
the rich productions of that favoured country.
From the west its most important affluents are the Pilcomayo and the
Vermejo, which fall into it below Assumption:--both flow through
a prodigious extent of country, having their sources in the rich
districts of Upper Peru. The first passes not far from Potosi, and,
after a thousand windings through the chaco, or desert, falls into the
Paraguay by two branches, the one called the Araquay, in lat. 25° 21´
29", according to an observation taken by Azara; the other, about nine
leagues below it. M. de Angelis has I think clearly shown that the
river to the north of Assumption, which Azara has laid down as the most
northern branch of the Pilcomayo, is the Fogones of Quiroga.
In 1741 Father Castañares attempted an exploration of the Pilcomayo,
in the expectation that it would facilitate a communication with the
Jesuit missions in the province of Chiquitos; but after many hardships
and difficulties, at the end of eighty-three days, he was obliged to
give it up, from the river becoming too shallow for his canoes to pass
on. In 1785 Azara attempted to ascend it by the Araquay, in a small
vessel; but after proceeding about twenty leagues, was obliged to
return, for the same reason,--want of water; although it was at the
season of the floods, and the river was more than ordinarily full.
The Vermejo, on the contrary, which falls into the Paraguay still
further down, has been more than once proved to afford a navigable
communication with the province of Salta: First by Cornejo, in 1790;
who, starting from the confluence of the rivers Centa and Tarija,
reached the Paraguay in fifty-five days; the distance by the river
being, according to his computation, no less than 407-1/2 leagues. And
more recently, in 1826, by Don Pablo Soria, the agent of some spirited
individuals in Buenos Ayres, who about that time formed an association
for the purpose of endeavouring to open a water-communication between
the capital and the rich districts of the Upper Provinces. The vessel
they built for the purpose was fifty-two feet long, and drew about two
feet water; which, with but little more assistance than was necessary
to keep in the mid-stream, was floated down from the neighbourhood
of Oran by the current, and in fifty-seven days entered the Paraguay,
without any other impediment than a feeble attempt on the part of some
Indians, armed with bows and arrows, to annoy them as they passed
through their lands.
Once in the Paraguay, the main object of the voyage was accomplished.
Unfortunately, however, for the adventurers themselves, they were
there seized upon by Dr. Francia, the despotic ruler of that country,
who, worse than the savages, detained them for five years.[51] He
also deprived them of their papers; and thus the details of a most
interesting voyage were lost, although the great and highly important
fact was established beyond dispute of the existence of a safe and
navigable water-communication the whole way from Oran to Buenos Ayres;
a result which must sooner or later be of immense consequence to the
inhabitants of the Upper Provinces.
About thirty miles below the mouth of the Vermejo the Paraguay is
joined from the east by the great river Paranã, which name it thence
takes till it is finally lost in the Rio de la Plata. This river,
rivalling in extent the Paraguay itself, rises in the mountain-chains
to the north-west of Rio de Janeiro, in latitude 21°. Turning first
westward, and afterwards towards the south, it is increased by several
large rivers, amongst which the most noted are the Paranaiba, the
Tieté, the Paranapané, and the Curitava. On reaching the Guarani
Missions, near Candelaria, in about lat. 27° 30´, it turns again
westward, and runs with little deviation from that parallel till it
falls into the Paraguay. Thence these two mighty rivers, mingling
their waters flow on in one vast and uninterrupted stream, gradually
increased by many rivers of minor importance, which join it from either
side, till they finally empty themselves through a well-defined delta
into the estuary of La Plata.
The extent of the practicable navigation on the two great branches of
this mighty river varies with the geological formation of the countries
through which they respectively pass.
The Paranã, whilst running through the mountainous districts of Brazil,
is broken by many falls above the Guarani Missions, especially one
called the Salto Grande, in lat. 24° 4´ 58" (as fixed by the officers
of the Boundary Commission in 1788), where the river, which immediately
before is nearly a league across, becomes suddenly confined by a rocky
pass not more than sixty yards in width, through which it rushes with
inconceivable fury, and forms a splendid cataract, between 50 and 60
feet high, dashing down with such thundering noise that it is said
to be heard at a distance of five or six leagues. For a hundred miles
afterwards, as far as the mouth of the river Curitiba, in lat. 25° 41´,
the river is nothing but a succession of falls and rapids.
The Paraguay, properly so called, on the contrary, may be passed up by
vessels of some burthen the whole way[52] to the Jaurú, in latitude
16° 25´, presenting the extraordinary extent of an uninterrupted
inland navigation of nearly nineteen degrees of latitude, calculating
the straight distance north and south, throughout the whole of which
there is not a rock or stone to impede the passage, the bottom being
everywhere of clay or fine sand. The least depth of water is in the
channels through the delta by which it discharges itself into the
Plata, but in the passage called the Guazú (the great canal) there is
seldom less than two and a half fathoms.
The upper part of the river is extremely picturesque, and its shores
abound in all the varieties of an intertropical vegetation. The palms
particularly are remarkable for the magnificence of their growth.
Below the junction of the Paranã it is thickly studded with islands
covered with wild orange-trees, and a variety of beautiful shrubs and
parasitical plants, new to European eyes.
It has been remarked that there is a great resemblance in the
periodical risings and inundations of the Paraguay and those of the
Nile, and there is certainly a striking analogy between the two
rivers in many respects. Both rise in the torrid zone, nearly at
the same distance from the equator, and both, though holding their
courses towards opposite poles, disembogue by deltas in about the same
latitude; both are navigable for very long distances, and both have
their periodical risings, bursting over their natural bounds, and
inundating immense tracts of country.
The Paranã begins to rise about the end of December, which is soon
after the commencement of the rainy season in the countries situated
between the tropic of Capricorn and the equator, and increases
gradually till the month of April, when it begins to fall something
more rapidly until the month of July. There is afterwards a second
rising, called by the natives the _repunte_; but this, though regular,
is of no great consequence, the river never overflowing its banks. It
is probably occasioned by the swelling of the rivers from the winter
rains in the temperate zone.
The extent of these periodical risings is, of course, in some degree,
regulated by the quantity, more or less, of rain which may fall during
the corresponding season; but, in general, the inundation takes place
with great regularity, the waters rising gradually about twelve feet in
the bed of the river in four months; this is the ordinary average of
the increase of the river after its junction with the Paraguay; though
above it, at Assumption, where the river is much confined, the rise is
said to be sometimes as much as five or six fathoms.
The year 1812 was remarkable for the greatest flood in the memory
of the natives. Vast quantities of cattle were carried away by it,
and when the waters began to subside, and the islands which they had
covered became again visible, the whole atmosphere for a time was
poisoned by the effluvia from the innumerable carcases of skunks,
capiguaras, tigers, and other wild beasts which had been drowned on
them. On such occasions it frequently happens that the animals, to save
themselves, swim off to the floating masses of canes and brushwood
(called by the Spaniards "camelotes"), and are thus carried down the
river, and landed in the vicinity of the towns and villages upon the
coast. Many strange stories, are told of the unexpected visits of
tigers so conveyed from their ordinary haunts to Buenos Ayres and Monte
Video. One in my time was shot in my own grounds near Buenos Ayres,
and some years before no less than four were landed in one night at
Monte Video, to the great alarm of the inhabitants when they found them
prowling about the streets in the morning. In the swampy region of
Xarayes, where the inundation commences, the ants, which are in vast
numbers there, have the sagacity to build their nests in the tops of
the trees, far out of reach of the waters; and these nests are made of
a kind of adhesive clay, so hard that no cement can be more durable or
impervious to the weather.
During the inundation the river is exceedingly turbid, from the great
quantity of vegetable substances and mud brought down by it:--the
velocity of the stream in the higher and narrower parts of the river
at first prevents their deposition, but as it approaches the lower
lands, or pampas, where it overflows its bed, these substances are
spread over the face of the land, forming a grey slimy soil, which,
on the abatement of the waters, is found to increase vegetation in a
surprising degree.
A calculation has been made by Colonel Monasterios, author of an
excellent paper on this river, printed in the Statistical Register of
Buenos Ayres for 1822, that no less than 4000 square leagues of country
are annually covered by the waters during the periodical inundations of
the Paranã.
From the almost uninterrupted level of the country which intervenes
between the eastern ranges of the Cordillera and the Paraguay, many
rivers which descend from them are either partially or entirely lost,
after long and tortuous meanderings, in swamps and lakes, the waters
of which are absorbed by evaporation during the heats of summer. This
is strikingly exemplified in the river Pasages, or Salado, which, from
the great extent of its course, and the many other streams it collects
in its long course from the province of Salta to Santa Fé, would be a
river of the first importance, were not the greater part of its waters
lost in the level plains through which it runs. The Dulce, which,
passing by Tucuman and Santiago, runs parallel to it, is lost in the
great lake called the Porongos, in the pampas of the province of Santa
Fé. The Primero and Segundo, which rise in the province of Cordova,
disappear in the same plains. The Tercero, the most important river of
that province, with difficulty finds its way during part of the year
to the bed of the Carcaraña, which falls into the Paranã, near San
Espiritu, below Santa Fé. The Quarto and the Quinto, and, still further
south, the waters of the rivers from Mendoza and San Luis, are lost in
the swamps and lakes which form so striking a feature in the maps of
that part of the continent.
The Uruguay, which contributes with the Paranã to form the great
estuary of La Plata, takes its name from the numerous falls and rapids
which mark its course. The whole extent of its course is little less
than 300 leagues. It rises in latitude 27° 30´, in the mountains on
the coast of Brazil, opposite the island of St. Catharine's, and for
a long distance runs nearly due west, receiving, besides many rivers
of less importance, the Uruguay-Mini (or Little Uruguay) from the
south, and the Pepiry-Guazú (or Great Pepiry) from the north. As it
approaches the Paranã it changes its course, inclining southward
through the beautiful territories of the old Jesuit Missions. Opposite
to Yapeyú, the last of those establishments, it receives, in latitude
29° 30´, the Ybicuy, a considerable stream from the east. In 30° 12´
the Mirinay pours into it from the west a great part of the drainage of
the great lake or swamp of Ybera. Its principal tributaries afterwards
are the Gualeguaychú, from the province of Entre Rios, and the Negro,
the largest river of the Banda Oriental, soon after the junction of
which it falls into the Plata with the Paranã, in about 34° south
latitude. Flowing through a country the geological formation of which
totally differs from that through which the Paraguay takes its course,
its navigation is broken by many reefs and falls, only passable when
the waters are at their highest, during the periodical foods, or by
portages in the dry season. Of these the Salto Grande and Chico (the
great and small falls), a little below the 31° of latitude, are the
first and worst impediments met with in ascending the river. The former
consists of a rocky reef running like a wall across its bed, which
at low water is at times crossed by the gauchos of the country on
horseback, though during the floods it is passable in boats, by which,
and canoes, the river is navigable without further danger as high up as
the Missions.
Beautiful specimens of silicified wood and variegated pebbles are found
in the upper parts of the bed of this river, of which I brought many to
this country.
The Negro, which runs into it from the Banda Oriental, derives its name
(the black river) from the sarsaparilla plant, which, at a particular
season, rots upon its banks, and falls into the stream in such immense
quantities as to discolour its waters, which are found to be highly
medicinal, and much in request in consequence. The little village of
Mercedes, near its mouth, has of late years been much resorted to by
invalids from Buenos Ayres to drink these waters.
The river Paraguay, as high as the Jaurú, was carefully laid down after
the treaty of 1750; and the Spanish officers appointed to determine the
boundaries, in virtue of that subsequently signed in 1777, surveyed the
Paranã as high as the Tieté, as well as the whole of the Uruguay, and
determined the courses of all their most important affluents in the
course of the eighteen years during which they were employed in laying
down the southern division only of this survey. The results of their
labours, which were only stopped by the renewal of war, may justly be
ranked amongst the most beautiful and perfect geographical works ever
produced. Copies of the whole existed at Buenos Ayres during my time in
the hands of Colonel Cabrer, one of the officers originally attached to
the commissioners; and the Government of Buenos Ayres were in treaty
for the purchase of them for the use of the topographical department
of the state, where, it is to be hoped, they will not be buried in
unprofitable obscurity.
When the war with Brazil for the Banda Oriental broke out, in 1826,
Colonel Cabrer drew a MS. map from these materials for the use of
General Alvear, the Buenos Ayrean Commander-in-chief, which he was
afterwards kind enough to present to me. By a curious coincidence,
about the same time, I obtained possession of one upon a large scale of
the southern provinces of Brazil, drawn, by the Emperor's order, from
the best data to be collected at Rio de Janeiro, for the Marquis of
Barbacena, who commanded the Brazilian army, and lost it at the battle
of Ituzaingo. They have, I believe, afforded Mr. Arrowsmith data for
materially improving his last maps of that part of South America.
FOOTNOTES:
[50] His positions will be found in the tables of fixed points given in
the Appendix.
[51] The following wording of Francia's decree upon first hearing
of Soria's having arrived at Nembucú, within the jurisdiction of
Paraguay, is a fair sample of his mode of doing business:--"Soria is a
bold, insolent, and shameless fellow for having come here without any
previous permission, by a river which he has no business upon, and by
which he may return as he came, if he can, for downwards neither he nor
his vessel shall pass."
[52] Vessels of 300 tons burthen have been built above the city of
Assumption, and floated down the river to Buenos Ayres.
PART II.
THE PROVINCES.
CHAPTER XII.
THE LITTORINE PROVINCES.
SANTA FÉ--ENTRE RIOS--CORRIENTES--THE OLD JESUIT MISSIONS--PARAGUAY
UNDER DR. FRANCIA.
De Garay founds _Santa Fé_, and meets with Spaniards from
Peru. His subsequent Deeds and Death. The Government of the
Rio de la Plata separated from that of Paraguay, and Santa
Fé annexed to Buenos Ayres. Its former prosperity, and
great capabilities, especially for Steam Navigation. _The
Entre Rios_--constituted a Province in 1814, its Extent,
Government, and Population--chiefly a grazing Country.
_Corrientes_--its valuable natural Productions--mistaken
ideas of the people as to Foreign Trade. The Lake
Ybera--Pigmies, Ants, Ant-Eaters, Locusts, and Beetles.
_The Missions_ now depopulated--their happy and flourishing
state under the Jesuits. _Paraguay_--some Account of its
former Prosperity and Trade, and the establishment of the
tyrannical rule of Dr. Francia.
PROVINCE OF SANTA FÉ.
The first discoverers of La Plata, as has been already observed, fixed
themselves in Paraguay, and established the seat of their government
at Assumption, the capital of that province. In his way up the river,
Sabastian Cabot built a fort, called Sancti-Espiritu, at the junction
of the Carcarãna with the Paranã; Ayolas, a few years after, built
another not far from it, to which he gave the name of Corpus Christi;
but these, like Mendoza's settlement at Buenos Ayres, were very soon
destroyed by the warlike nations which then inhabited the whole of the
right bank of the river; and, for the first half-century, with their
views solely fixed on making a nearer approach to Peru, the Spaniards
concerned themselves but little about the conquest of the poorer lands
they had left behind them. The ships, which during that time continued
to arrive in the River Plate, with fresh adventurers from Spain, with
an inland navigation before them, to Assumption, requiring as much time
as the whole voyage out from Europe, were entirely dependent for the
refreshments they required on the accidental good will of the natives.
Once in the Paranã, if any accident befell them, for nearly a thousand
miles there was not a single Christian port in which they could take
refuge.
It was under these circumstances that Don Juan de Garay, a Biscayan
hidalgo (in 1573), who had already greatly distinguished himself
amongst his companions at arms in those parts, solicited and
obtained permission to make a sally from Assumption, to endeavour to
re-establish Cabot's fort at the mouth of the Carcarãna, and to found
other settlements upon the right bank of the Paranã.
The whole force he could muster for this enterprise, when ready,
consisted only of eighty men, a small party wherewith to attempt to
seize upon lands defended by a numerous and warlike people, already
elated by former victories over the Spaniards, though probably as large
a one as his own means would allow him to equip; for in those days the
whole charge of such undertakings devolved upon the projectors:--they
were obliged to raise the means as they could, and their ultimate
success of course were mainly depended upon the extent of their
personal credit.
De Garay landed, in the first instance, with his followers, thirty or
forty miles to the north of the river Salado, and, finding the natives
disposed to be friendly, and the aspect of the country inviting, he
determined there to make his first settlement, naming it Santa Fé de la
Vera-Cruz.
The site originally fixed upon was where Cayestá now stands, upon an
inferior branch of the Paranã; but, at a subsequent period, the Santa
Fecinos removed lower down to the banks of the Salado.
Whilst part of his people were employed upon the works, De Garay
embarked with the rest in a small brig which attended him, and
descending the Paranã entered the Salado, and opened a communication
with the natives established upon its banks. There an adventure
attended him, which he little looked for. Just as he flattered himself
he had established a friendly understanding with the Indians, their
conduct was observed suddenly to change:--a great stir took place
amongst them, and they began to betake themselves, to their arms, and
to gather together in such numbers that the Spaniards, alarmed, and
expecting to be attacked by them, were glad to get on board their
little vessel, and make the best preparations they could for defence.
From the mast-head fires were seen lighting in every direction, the
well-known signal for war; and the man placed there to look out gave
notice that the savages were pouring down towards them in vast numbers,
not only by land, but by the river, in their canoes, apparently to
attack them in their ship.
De Garay, pent up in a little creek, into which he had run his vessel,
and believing his situation desperate, was exhorting his people at any
rate to defend themselves to the last, when suddenly the man called
out that he saw a cavalier, presently another, and another, and then
several more, charging the Indians in their rear; nor was it long
before they saw the whole host dispersed, routed, and flying before
a party of horsemen. The Spaniards were as much astonished at this
unlooked-for encounter as the Indians, nor could they imagine to whom
they were thus indebted for their preservation at the moment they
expected to have been overwhelmed without a chance of succour, though
that they were some of their countrymen they could not doubt after
seeing the horses.
The strangers were not long in making themselves known; they were
soldiers from Tucuman, who, under their leader Cabrera, having founded
the city of Cordova on the same day that De Garay had commenced his
settlement at Santa Fé, were then scouring the country to take
possession of it as belonging to his jurisdiction; De Garay in vain
resisted this pretension, and claimed it as belonging to Paraguay, in
right of prior possession and settlement: the others insisting with
a superior force, he had no alternative but to temporise, and submit
himself to Cabrera's orders, trusting to the higher powers to order the
matter differently.
Fortunately for the settlement of this question ere it led to more
serious consequences, the Adelantado Zarate opportunely arrived
from Spain with a grant from the King, explicitly including in his
government all settlements, which might be founded on either shore
of the river for the distance of 200 leagues: he not only confirmed
De Garay in his command at Santa Fé but took him into such especial
favour, that, dying soon afterwards, he left him guardian of his only
daughter; she, by his advice, married Don Juan de Vera and Arragon, who
in consequence succeeded to the Adelantasgo, which greatly increased
the influence of De Garay, who was immediately appointed lieutenant
over all the Rio de la Plata, and furnished with full authority to
carry into effect his own plans for reducing the Indians to subjection
upon its shores. Armed with these powers he conquered some of the
most warlike of the native tribes, and established the fame and power
of the Spaniards far and wide throughout all those regions:--the
last of his deeds was the foundation, in 1580, of the present city
of Buenos Ayres, as has been before stated. Alter passing three
years in superintending the laying out of the future capital of all
those provinces, upon his return to Assumption, going incautiously on
shore one night to sleep, he was surprised and killed by the savages.
Paraguay lost in him one of her wisest and most valiant captains,
whose death was greatly lamented, by the poor especially, to whom his
beneficence was unbounded.
The importance of the settlements he founded was soon apparent; and
in 1620 they were formed into a government independent of that of
Paraguay, under the name of the Government of La Plata; it comprised
all south of the junction of the rivers Paranã and Paraguay. Santa Fé
in consequence became a dependency of Buenos Ayres; an arrangement
confirmed in every territorial settlement subsequently made by any
competent authority.
In the domestic dissensions, however, which succeeded the establishment
of the Independent Government at Buenos Ayres, Santa Fé took an active
part, and disputed the right of the newly-constituted authorities
to interfere in the nomination of the provincial administrations.
Under these circumstances, in 1818, Lopez, a military officer who had
particularly distinguished himself in his resistance to the Central
Government upon this point, obtained the command of the province, in
which he has ever since been continued. Various circumstances have
concurred to leave him not only in undisturbed possession of this
local authority, but to render him in later times a personage of some
importance in the political history of the Republic. The jurisdiction
he lays claim to for the soi-disant province of Santa Fé extends as far
south as the Arroyo del Medio, to the west to the lakes of Porongos,
and to the north as far as the lands of the Indians of the Gran-chaco,
or Great Desert, against whom he has enough to do to defend himself.
In old times Santa Fé under the protection of the Central Government,
which spared no expense in constructing forts and maintaining the
forces requisite to keep the Indians in check, was the central point of
communication not only between Buenos Ayres and Paraguay, but between
Paraguay and the provinces of Cuyo and Tucuman: the wines and dried
fruits of Mendoza and St. Juan were brought there to be carried up
to Corrientes and Paraguay, which in return supplied the people of
those provinces, as well as those of Chile and Peru, through the same
channel, with all the yerba-maté they required, of which the annual
consumption in those provinces alone was calculated at from 3,000,000
to 4,000,000 lbs.
The _estancieros_ were amongst the richest in the Vice-Royalty; and
their cattle-farms not only covered the territory of Santa Fé, but
large tracts on the eastern shores of the river in the Entre Rios; from
which they furnished by far the greater part of the 50,000 mules yearly
sent to Salta for the service of Peru.
Their situation is now a very different one: the stoppage of the
trade with Paraguay and Peru has reduced them to a wretched state of
poverty; and their estrangement from the capital having left them
without adequate means of defence, the savages have attacked them with
impunity, laid waste the greater part of the province, and more than
once threatened the town itself with annihilation.
The population has greatly diminished;--perhaps in the whole province
there are not now more than 15,000 or 20,000 souls, a large proportion
of which is of Guarani origin, the descendants of emigrants from the
Jesuit missions in Paraguay, who abandoned them after the expulsion of
their pastors in 1768.
This state of things is the more lamentable as Santa Fé might, under
a different system, become one of the most important points of the
Republic: once more under the decided protection of the Government of
Buenos Ayres, not only might its own particular interests be vastly
advanced, but the greatest benefits might result to the rest of the
union.
Its situation offers striking facilities for carrying on a more active
transit-trade between Buenos Ayres and the provinces north of Cordova.
The river Salado, on which it stands, is known to be navigable for
barges as high up as Matara, in the province of Santiago, and at no
great distance from that city; if it were made use of there would be
a saving of upwards of 250 leagues of land-carriage in conveying goods
from Buenos Ayres to Santiago; but, even if this should turn out not to
be so practicable as it is said to be, a direct road is open from Santa
Fé which, passing by the lakes of Porongos, skirts the river Dulce, and
falls into the high road from Cordova a few posts south of the city of
Santiago; which, at the lowest computation, would still be 100 leagues
short of the over-land route now used from the capital to the Upper
Provinces by way of Cordova.
In any part of the world such a saving of land-carriage would be a
considerable object; but in a country where the roads are just as
nature has made them, and where the only means of transport for heavy
goods are the most unwieldy of primitive waggons, drawn by oxen--the
slowest of all conveyances,--not to speak of its expense, and the
risks, independently of the wear and tear necessarily attending it,
it becomes of the greatest importance. That it has not hitherto been
available, is owing to the difficulties attending the navigation of a
large river, not only against the current, but against a prevalence
of contrary winds, which have rendered the passage of the Paranã up
to Santa Fé even more tedious and expensive than the long over-land
journey. But the introduction of steam-boats would at once obviate
this, and enable the people of Buenos Ayres to send their heaviest
goods to Santa Fé by water-carriage in less time than a horse can now
gallop over the intervening country, for there is no reason in the
world why the ordinary voyage thither should exceed at the utmost three
days. I can hardly imagine a greater change in the prospects of a
people than this would open to the Santa Fecinos.
There is, however, another point of view, of serious consequence to
Buenos Ayres, in which for her own sake it concerns her to look to
the advantages, if not to the necessity, of taking speedy measures to
introduce steam-navigation upon the Paranã. Since the erection of the
Banda Oriental into an independent state, the yearly imports into Monte
Video have increased out of all ratio to the scanty population of that
state:--it is very evident what becomes of the excess, and that not
only the people on the eastern, but those on the western, shores of the
Uruguay, are supplied through that channel. The government of Monte
Video takes care so to regulate its duties as to make this a profitable
trade:--whilst it cannot be denied that the inhabitants of Entre Rios
and Santa Fé have quite as much right to traffic with their neighbours
as those of Mendoza and Salta have to trade with Chile and Peru.
Buenos Ayres has already suffered a great loss of revenue in
consequence, and this loss will yearly increase, to the great detriment
of the national credit, for which she is responsible, and to the still
further estrangement of the provinces from each other, unless she
takes active means to counteract the evil:--those means are in her
own hands. The introduction of steam-navigation, by establishing a
cheaper communication between her own port and the Littorine provinces,
will soon put an end to the profits of the over-land trade which is
at present carried on through the Banda Oriental. It may, perhaps,
be necessary, in the first instance, to grant some remission of the
ordinary duties, in the shape of drawback or otherwise, upon goods
reshipped for other parts of the republic in steamers, as well as
upon all produce of the country received by the same conveyance in
exchange:--but, whatever apparent sacrifice Buenos Ayres may make
to promote this object, she may be assured she will be repaid a
hundred-fold by the results.
If the confederation of these provinces is to be a real one, and for
joint benefit, they must pull together, and help one another. They
possess, in a singular degree, within themselves, the means of mutual
aid and support, and, if properly applied, they can hardly fail to
insure them a great increase of individual prosperity and national
importance.
The reverse of the picture has been foretold in words which no man can
gainsay:--"_if a kingdom be divided against itself, that kingdom cannot
stand._"
PROVINCE OF ENTRE RIOS.
The Entre Rios territory, bounded on three sides by the Paranã, and
on the east by the river Uruguay, like Santa Fé, formed part of the
intendency of Buenos Ayres till the year 1814, when the general
government divided it into two distinct provinces, called the provinces
of Entre Rios and Corrientes:--the separating line between them,
for the present agreed upon, is that formed by the little river
Guayquiraro, which falls into the Paranã in about latitude 30° 30´, and
the Mocoreta, which runs in the opposite direction into the Uruguay.
The Villa del Paranã, or Bajada, opposite to Santa Fé, is, nominally,
the capital town of Entre Rios;--which province is subdivided by the
river Gualeguay into two departments, that of the Paranã and that of
the Uruguay.
According to the Provisional Reglamento or Constitution drawn up in
1821, in imitation of that of Buenos Ayres, the governor should be
chosen every two years by a provincial junta, composed of deputies
from the several towns or villages, the principal of which, after the
capital, are the Villa de la Concepcion on the Uruguay; and Nogoya,
Gualeguay, and Gualeguaychú, on the rivers of the same name.
The population may be about 30,000 souls,--very much scattered,--and
almost entirely occupied in the estancias or cattle-farms, in which
the wealth of the province chiefly consists. Many of them belong
to capitalists in Buenos Ayres:--they have the advantages of a
never-failing supply of water, and of being safe from any inroads of
the Indians,--the two great desiderata for such establishments in that
part of the world,--whilst their proximity to Buenos Ayres ensures a
ready sale for the produce.
These advantages made it a great cattle-country in the time of the
Spaniards, but it was devastated and depopulated in the first years
of the struggle for independence by the notorious Artigas and his
followers, and became the scene of much bloodshed and confusion:--from
that it had hardly begun to recover when the war, breaking out between
the Republic and Brazil for the Banda Oriental, again made it the
theatre, as a frontier province, of military operations, and unsettled
the habits of the population. The years which have elapsed since the
conclusion of that war have sufficed once more to cover the province
with cattle, and there are gauchos enough to take care of them.
PROVINCE OF CORRIENTES.
The population of the province of Corrientes in 1824 was estimated at
from 35,000 to 40,000 inhabitants. It is ruled by a governor elected by
a junta of deputies,--how they are chosen I know not. His official acts
are countersigned by a secretary, and in law matters he is assisted by
an officer termed the assessor,--a point of form common, I believe, to
all the provincial administrations, and derived from the practice of
the intendents in the time of the Spanish rule.
The city of Corrientes was begun in 1588, soon after De Garay founded
his settlements at Santa Fé and Buenos Ayres. Its position is in
latitude 27° 27´, at the junction of the rivers Paranã and Paraguay,
and it may also be said of the Vermejo, the mouth of which is not more
than ten leagues distant from it:--it affords, in consequence, every
facility for an active commercial intercourse with the most remote
parts of the republic. The natural productions in these latitudes are
similar to those of Brazil, and cotton, tobacco, rice, sugar, indigo,
and many other articles of the first demand in the markets of Europe,
may be produced there in any quantity:--but the same difficulties to
which I have already alluded, in speaking of the navigation of the
Paranã, aggravated by increased distance, have hitherto prevented the
people of Corrientes from profiting, as might have been expected, by
these advantages, and have checked all inducement to industry; although
they themselves, in their simplicity, ascribe the non-cultivation of
their lands to different causes:--they think, with their neighbour
Dr. Francia, that foreign ships might just as well go to them as to
Buenos Ayres, and that they do not do so they ascribe to the policy
of the metropolitan government, which they ungratefully reproach with
refusing to throw open the navigation of the river to foreign trade in
order to appropriate to their own purposes the revenue resulting from
it,--regardless of the fact that the collection of those duties is the
only means by which Buenos Ayres can ever expect to discharge either
interest or capital of the heavy debts she has incurred in securing
the independence, and in since upholding the honour and credit of the
republic.
There can be no doubt that it will always be the true policy of the
governors of Buenos Ayres to render those duties as light as possible,
and especially to reduce, as far as they can, all charges upon the
native produce from the provinces of the interior; but if they are
to be placed, as they always have been, and from their geographical
position always must be, in the vanguard of the republic, to bear the
brunt of foreign wars, and all those expenses which must naturally
arise out of their intercourse with other nations, they can never give
up their right to avail themselves of the ordinary resources for
meeting such exigencies which are placed within their reach.
If the expenses of the war with the mother country for their
independence, and afterwards of that with Brazil for establishing
that of the Banda Oriental, could be fairly apportioned amongst the
population of the provinces, the people of Corrientes, as well as of
all other parts of the interior, would soon see that the custom-house
duties now levied at Buenos Ayres which affect them would go but little
way to meet anything like the share of that national expenditure which
might be justly charged against them.
It is, however, useless to enter into this discussion, when the truth
is, that, whether Buenos Ayres chooses or not to declare the navigation
of the Paranã free, the people of Corrientes may rest assured it will
never answer to the shipping of foreign nations to avail themselves
of it:--foreigners will purchase the productions of Corrientes and of
Paraguay if placed within their reach at low prices, but they will not
unnecessarily incur the risks and expenses of sending their own ships
a thousand miles up a river against wind and tide, in quest of a cargo
which may at all times be had in the seaports of Brazil.
Steam-communication will enable the Correntinos to compete with the
Brazilians, and it is perhaps the only means by which they will be
enabled to find any sale for their produce at such a rate as will make
it worth the while of foreigners to seek for it, even in the market of
Buenos Ayres. They have every facility for establishing it,--navigable
rivers communicating with the farthest extremes of the republic,--and
an endless abundance of wood of every kind for fuel.
A remarkable physical feature in this province is the great lagoon of
Ybera, extending in width about thirty leagues parallel to the course
of the Paranã, from which it is supposed to derive its waters by some
underground drainage, for no stream runs into it. Spreading far and
wide to the south it occupies the enormous space of about a thousand
square miles, and supplies four considerable rivers--the Mirinay,
which runs into the Uruguay; and the Santa Lucia, the Bateles, and the
Corrientes, which discharge themselves into the Paranã. It was Azara's
opinion, from the general aspect of the country, that the Paranã itself
at some former period took its course through this lake, and might
again resume its ancient channel. At present it is hardly possible to
explore any part of it from the prodigious quantity of aquatic plants
and shrubs by which it is for the most part covered.
What a store of lacustrine deposits is here forming for the examination
of future geologists!
Connected with this lake is the tradition, which has been handed down
by early Spanish writers, of a nation of _pigmies_ who were said to
have lived in islands in the midst of it, a tale which the first
discoverers, who were generally as ignorant as they were brave, seem
to have as implicitly believed as that a race of giants once occupied
other parts of the same continent.
Both tales are easily traceable to their true origin, and neither of
them is without a plausible foundation.
The bones of extinct animals of monstrous size, so frequently met
with, gave rise, as well they might, to the story of the giants. The
_pigmies_ are a race unfortunately not yet extinct, and are palpably
the _ants_, whose marvellous works (especially in the part of the
country I am speaking of), vying with those of man himself, are no less
calculated to have occasioned at first sight, amongst credulous people,
the most far-fetched conjectures as to their origin. I have made some
allusion, in speaking of the course of the river Paraguay, to their
ingenious contrivances in the lakes of Xarayes (where also the pigmy
tribes were said to have dwelt), but those are nothing compared to the
works of the ants of Corrientes and Paraguay, where whole plains are
said to be covered with their buildings of dome-like and conical forms,
rising five and six feet and more in height, and formed of a cement
hard as a rock, and impervious to the wet. Man's vanity might easily
prompt him to mistake them for works of his own kind in miniature;
but, all-presumptuous as he is, nothing he has ever yet constructed in
all the plenitude of his power is comparable to the works of these
little insects. The Pyramids of Egypt do not bear one half the relative
proportion to his own size which the ordinary habitations of these ants
do to theirs.
Their works under ground are no less extraordinary: Azara has described
with his usual minuteness the various species which he fell in with.
There is one amongst others which is winged, and the swarms of which
are so prodigious, that he says he rode for three leagues continuously
through one of them. This was in about the latitude of Santa Fé, where
they particularly abound, and where the people catch them and eat them.
The hind parts it seems are very fat, and they fry them into a sort of
paste or omelette, or, mixed up with sugar, make sweetmeats of them.
They are a sad pest to the agriculturist and a great nuisance when they
get inside the houses. At Buenos Ayres they are very troublesome: I
tried myself every means in vain to get rid of them; their ingenuity
always baffled us; no contrivance could keep anything in the shape
of sweetmeats or dried fruits or such things out of their clutches;
and as to the quantity of sugar they would carry off in a very short
time, it was incredible: we thought to escape them by placing our
stores upon tables, the legs of which were surrounded by water, but
they threw straws and sticks into the water, and so made themselves
bridges to cross by. If we hung them from the ceiling they climbed the
walls and descended by the ropes which suspended them. In our garden
they committed terrible depredations; and in the summer-season it was
always necessary to keep a couple of men constantly employed for the
sole purpose of destroying their nests. We observed that they could not
exist in the sun; so that, if a basin of sugar were half filled with
them, as was constantly the case, by putting it into the sun it was
presently cleared of every one of them.
The Jesuit father Guevara, in his account of Paraguay, speaks of a
species not noticed by Azara, found about Villa Rica, which deposits
upon certain plants small globules of white wax, which the inhabitants
collect to make candles of. The utility they are of in this respect,
he says, in some measure compensates for the damage they do to the
husbandman. Against their depredations, St. Simon and St. Jude, and St.
Bonifacio[53], have been by turns elected in due form to be the special
guardians and protectors of all good Catholics.
Fortunately, however, in those regions where these insects most
abound, an all-wise Providence has also placed a most remarkable
animal--formed, as it would appear, expressly for the purpose of
destroying them and preventing their overrunning the land--the
tamandua, or, as we call it, the ant-bear.
I hardly know any animal which exhibits more striking evidence of
design on the part of the Creator: slow and sluggish in all its
movements, without power of escape, and apparently without the ordinary
means of self-defence, its long trumpet-shaped snout solely formed to
contain the singular prehensory organ with which it is furnished for
the purpose of taking its diminutive prey, being entirely destitute
of anything like the teeth of other animals; it would be speedily
exterminated by the beasts of prey which abound where it is found, were
it not--as if to compensate for these deficiencies--providentially
supplied with strong sharp claws, and such courage and muscular power
to use them, as enables it to defy every assailant. When attacked it
throws itself upon its back, and in that posture will make so desperate
a resistance, that it is a match either for the jaguar or tiger, its
fiercest enemies.
The ants are not the worst plagues in these countries: destructive as
they are, they are not to be compared with the locusts; though, happily
(and indeed were it otherwise, all man's labour would be vain), they
are only occasional visitors. When they do come they lay the land
utterly desolate.
I once witnessed one of their visitations, and, but that I had myself
seen the extent of the devastation caused by them, I certainly would
not have believed it.
They made their appearance at first in a large dense cloud, hovering
high in the air, as if hesitating where to descend. All the shovels
and pots and pans in Buenos Ayres were put in requisition to make
a clatter to affright them, but in vain; down they came, to the
consternation of the owners of every quinta, or garden, in the
neighbourhood of the city. They soon spread for several miles over
the surface of the land, and so thickly that it was like driving
over gravel to go amongst them;--that, I well remember was just my
impression upon going out upon the high road in a carriage whilst they
were on the ground. They had then been at their work of destruction
two or three days, and were for the most part so gorged as to be quite
incapable of moving; in a day or two more they had literally not left
a blade of grass or a green leaf to be seen; some of those that were
not then dying of satiety began to devour one another. This was early
in the year 1826. Though they were always as thick as grasshoppers, I
never saw at Buenos Ayres what was termed a flight of locusts but that
once, in nearly nine years.
It was succeeded a few days afterwards by a flight of small black
beetles, which came down like hail, and were swept up by shovels-full
in our balconies: it was a small insect, about the size of an earwig,
and was said to have the same habits; they worked their way into the
house in great numbers, where they fell into a sort of torpid state, in
which they became an easy prey to the ants, who upon this occasion were
our active allies, and helped us to get rid of them.
THE OLD MISSIONS OF THE JESUITS.
To the eastward of Corrientes are the depopulated ruins, all that
remain, of the once famed Missions of the Jesuits, the greater part of
which were situated on the shores of the Paranã and Uruguay, where the
courses of those rivers nearly meet.
When the order was expelled from South America in 1767, there were a
hundred thousand inhabitants in the thirty towns in those parts under
their control. In those situated east of the Paranã, not a thousand
souls remained in 1825, according to an account I received from the
officer who was in command there at that period, and they were I
believe shortly afterwards swept off during the war with Brazil for the
occupation of the Banda Oriental. The other towns beyond the Paranã,
being within the jurisdiction of Paraguay, have fared little better
under Dr. Francia.
This was that _Imperium in imperio_ which once excited the astonishment
of the world and the jealousy of princes: how little cause they had to
be alarmed by it was best proved by the whole fabric falling to pieces
on the removal of a few poor old priests: a more inoffensive community
never existed.
It was an experiment on a vast scale, originated in the purest spirit
of Christianity, to domesticate and render useful hordes of savages
who would otherwise, like the rest of the aborigines, have been
miserably exterminated in war or slavery by the conquerors of the land.
Its remarkable success excited envy and jealousy, and caused a thousand
idle tales to be circulated as to the political views of the Jesuits
in founding such establishments, which unfortunately gained too easy
credence in a credulous age, and contributed, there is no doubt, to
hasten the downfall of their order.
Their real crime, if crime it was, was the possession of that moral
power and influence which was the natural consequence of their
surpassing knowledge and wisdom in the times in which they lived.
With respect to their Missions in South America, nothing could be more
inconsistent than the allegations made against them:--whilst accused,
on the one hand, of aiming at the establishment of a powerful and
independent supremacy, they were, on the other, at the same time,
reproached with having systematically kept the Indians in a state of
infantine tutelage.
What would have been the consequences of the opposite system? How long
would the Spanish rule in those countries have lasted had the Jesuits
trained up a hundred thousand of the proper owners of the soil in any
practical knowledge of the rights of man? How long would the Jesuits
themselves have preserved their influence with them?
The Indians loved the Jesuits, and looked to them as to their
fathers, and great were their lamentations when they were taken from
them, and replaced by the unprincipled Franciscan friars sent to them
by Bucareli, the Captain General of Buenos Ayres:--the following
memorials, addressed to him from the Missions of San Luis and Martires,
will serve to throw some light on the true feelings of the people with
regard to their old and new pastors.
I have given a copy of one of the originals in Guarani in the Appendix,
as a specimen of a language, which, of all the native tongues, was,
perhaps, the most diffused in South America, and which, to this day,
may be traced from the Paranã to the Amazons:--
No. I.
_Translation of a Memorial addressed by the people of the
Mission of San Luis to the Governor of Buenos Ayres,
praying that the Jesuits may remain with them instead of
the Friars sent to replace them._
(J. H. S.)
"God preserve your Excellency, say we, the Cabildo, and all the
Caciques and Indians, men, women, and children, of San Luis, as your
Excellency is our father. The Corregidor Santiago Pindo and Don
Pantaleon Cayuari, in their love for us, have written to us for certain
birds which they desire we will send them for the King:--we are very
sorry not to have them to send, inasmuch as they live where God made
them--in the forests,--and fly far away from us, so that we cannot
catch them.
"Withal we are the vassals of God and of the King, and always desirous
to fulfil the wishes of his ministers in what they desire of us. Have
we not been three times as far as Colonia with our aid!--and do we not
labour in order to pay tribute!--and now we pray to God that that best
of birds--the Holy Ghost--may descend upon the King, and enlighten him,
and may the Holy Angel preserve him!
"So, confiding in your Excellency, Señor Governor, our proper father,
with all humility, and with tears, we beg that the Sons of St.
Ignatius, the Fathers of the Society of Jesus, may continue to live
with us and remain always amongst us. This we beg your Excellency
to supplicate of the King for us for the love of God:--all this
people,--men, women, and young persons, and especially the poor,--pray
for the same with tears in their eyes.
"As for the friars and priests sent to replace them, we love them not.
The Apostle St. Thomas, the minister of God, so taught our forefathers
in these same parts,--for these friars and priests have no care for us.
The Sons of San Ignatius, yes,--they, from the very first, took care of
our forefathers, and taught them, and baptized them, and preserved them
for God and the King:--but for these friars and priests, in no manner
do we wish for them.
"The Fathers of the Society of Jesus know how to bear with our
weaknesses, and we were happy under them for God's sake and the
King's:--if your Excellency, good Señor Governor, will listen to our
prayer, and grant our request, we will pay larger tribute in the _yerba
caa-mini_.[54]
"We are not slaves, and we desire to say that the Spanish custom is
not to our liking,--for every one to take care of himself, instead of
assisting one another in their daily labours.[55] This is the plain
truth which we say to your Excellency, that it may be attended to:--if
it is not, this people, like the rest, will be lost. This to your
Excellency, to the King, and to God,--we shall go to the Devil!--and at
the hour of our death where will be our help?
"Our children, who are in the country and in the towns, when they
return and find not the Sons of San Ignatius, will flee away to the
deserts and to the forests to do evil. Already it would seem that the
people of San Joaquim, San Estanislaus, San Ferdinand, and Tymbo, are
lost,--we know it well, and we say so to your Excellency:--neither can
the Cabildos ever restore these people for God and the King as they
were.
"So, good Governor, grant us what we ask,--and may God help and keep
you. This is what we say in the name of the people of San Luis, this
28th of February, 1768.
"Your humble servants and children."
(Signed by the members of the municipality.)
No. II.
_Complaint of the people of Martires of the conduct of the
priests sent to them after the expulsion of the Jesuits._
(J. H. S.)
"To our most excellent Governor:--
"Blessed and praised be the holy sacrament! God our Lord grant you a
long life and health on earth, and happiness hereafter in heaven. So
we pray him,--we, the Corregidor, Cabildo, and Caciques of the people
of the Holy Martyrs,--who, casting ourselves with all humility at your
feet, give praises to God and to our King, and to you, Señor Governor,
for having come by his command, as his deputy, amongst us.
"Holding you in the highest reverence, we make known to you that all
this people are perfectly obedient to the orders of our Catholic King,
trying to esteem and respect the spiritual pastors sent to us, in
nothing failing in our duties towards them, with all due respect, as
they are the ministers of God.
"But, although this is our behaviour, they are not satisfied with
us:--for two or three days they were pleased with our humility, and no
longer.
"It has happened that the Corregidor, wishing to execute the orders
of the Governor, the Curate has said,--'This man wrongs you:--in
what light do you look upon his authority compared with that of your
priests? The King himself is only a superior governor, and shall be
food for the worms, and nothing more:--I fear no one.' Saying so he
ordered fifty stripes to be given to an Indian; and a poor woman he
ordered to be tied to a post, and flogged. He goes about with a stick
in his hand to beat us, and a few days past he punished an Indian with
blows in the church itself, before all the people:--another he beat in
the square, saying,--'If I kill him I shall do no great harm.'
"The Administrator alone sometimes protects us from these punishments,
saying to him, with proper respect,--'Father, you have no business to
interfere in temporal matters,'--and for this he is not well with him.
This officer endeavours to observe the commands of God and of the King
for the good of this people, and in nothing have we to complain of him.
He helps us on all occasions, and much we stand in need of it, Señor
Governor.
"But God and the King have appointed you for our comfort, and so we
make known to you our difficulties. We are fearful lest the people
should lose their obedience and respect for the King's orders, when
they hear the priests call the mandates of the King, and of his
Governor, words of no consequence:--and so for your guidance we tell
you the truth, which God knows, and is testified to by all this
people. Santos Martires, 16th April, 1768."
(Signed by the Cabildo, &c.)
Bucareli, on receipt of the first of these simple documents, sent
it to Spain, with the ridiculous announcement that he considered it
as the forerunner of a rising in favour of the Jesuits, and had, in
consequence, ordered a chosen body of troops to proceed immediately
from Paraguay and Corrientes to the neighbourhood of the Missions to
be in readiness to put down the expected insurrection: thither too he
proceeded himself to take the field in person against the rebels.
He found them not in arms but in tears:--the Jesuits, though he
could not believe it, had brought up the Indians in obedience, and
in the love of their King as well as of God,--and, having said their
say, they resigned themselves submissively to the orders of their
newly-appointed superiors,--giving thanks to the King for having sent a
personage of such importance as Bucareli to take care of them. Bucareli
met, in fact, with not the slightest opposition from the Indians, in
substituting his own system of administration for that of the Jesuits,
which he had been amongst the foremost to find fault with.
The efficacy of his own measures may be judged by their result:--he
sent them civil governors, and appointed Franciscan friars for their
spiritual pastors:--the misrule of the first, and the little respect
inspired by the latter, compared with the uniformly exemplary lives
of their predecessors, brought about in little more than a quarter of
a century, the entire ruin and depopulation of these once happy and
prosperous communities. The Indians, as they themselves predicted in
their letter to him, when there was no longer sufficient wisdom in
their governors to prevent it, were lost both to God and the King.
In saying this I do not pretend to dispute that the institutions of
the Jesuits were not, in many points, defective, like all others of
man's creation; they were, however, framed under very remarkable and
novel circumstances, for which great allowances must be made in any
comparison of them with the social systems of Europe; if we look at the
good they did, rather than for the evil which they did not, we shall
find that, in the course of about a century and a half, upwards of a
million of Indians were made Christians by them, and taught to be happy
and contented under the mild and peaceful rule of their enlightened and
admirable pastors,--a blessed lot compared with the savage condition of
the unreclaimed tribes around them.
PARAGUAY,
strictly speaking, has no place in this book, being, as it is for the
present, a distinct and separate Republic; but, like the Missions, it
is impossible to pass so near it without some allusion to its former
prosperity, and to its present very singular condition under the
despotic rule of Dr. Francia.
It was in Paraguay that the first conquerors of the country fixed their
abode and the seat of their government:--it was there also, attracted
by the same inducements of a genial clime and a profusion of natural
productions to satisfy all man's wants, that the Jesuit fathers laid
the original foundations of their celebrated establishments just spoken
of. Its population, before it ceased to be a province subject to the
government of Buenos Ayres, was estimated at 200,000 souls, and the
yearly value of its surplus produce, exported for consumption to Buenos
Ayres and the interior provinces, fell little short of a million and a
half of dollars. Eight millions of pounds of Paraguay tea were annually
sent to Santa Fé and Buenos Ayres, besides a million of pounds of
tobacco, large quantities of timber for every purpose, cotton, sugar,
molasses, spirits, and a variety of other articles.
The yerba-maté, or tea, which forms the principal article in the list,
is as much in general use and demand throughout all the provinces of
La Plata, Chile, and many parts of Peru, as the teas of China are in
Europe. The plant which produces it (the _Ilex Paraguayensis_) is an
evergreen about the size of an orange-tree, which grows wild and in
great abundance in the dense forests in the northern and eastern parts
of the province, whither the people repair yearly in numerous gangs
to collect it. The difficulties of penetrating the woods to reach the
yerbales, as they are called, are considerable, but they are amply
repaid by the certain profits of the adventure. The whole process of
preparing and packing it for market is performed on the spot. The
tender branches and twigs, being selected, are roasted quickly over a
fire till the leaves are crisp; and then, after being partially crushed
or pounded, are rammed into hide bags, called serrons, containing 200
lbs. each, which, when sown up, are ready for sale.
The Jesuits cultivated the plant, of which there are three species,
in their Missions; and by attention produced a better quality of tea,
called _caa-mini_, than that from the wild plant collected in the woods.
From the practice of reducing the leaf nearly to dust probably
originated the general custom in South America of sucking the infusion
when made through a tube, at one end of which is a strainer, which
prevents the small particles of the tea-leaves from getting into the
mouth: it is usually made very strong, very hot, and very sweet with
sugar; its properties seem to be much the same as those of the China
tea. The Spaniards learned to use it from the Guarani Indians.
When the Viceroy's power was overthrown in 1810, the province of
Paraguay refused to acknowledge the central government set up at Buenos
Ayres to succeed him, and an army was in consequence sent to reduce
it to obedience; but the Paraguay troops defeated the Buenos Ayrean
general, Belgrano, who was glad to capitulate, and be permitted to
return whence he came. Emboldened by this success, which gave them an
idea of their own consequence beyond any they had before entertained,
they proceeded at once to assert their absolute independence, not only
of Buenos Ayres, but of the mother country, and to declare Paraguay a
free and sovereign state, a step beyond any at that time contemplated,
perhaps even by the rulers of Buenos Ayres themselves, who, though
self-elected, continued to act in the King's name up to 1816, the date
of their declaration of independence at Tucuman.
This proclamation of the independence of Paraguay was followed in the
first instance by the setting up of a triumvirate government, of which
Francia was the secretary, and soon became the secret mover of the
whole machine. A sort of Mephistopheles, he was not long ere he set the
members of the government by the ears, and by his intrigues brought
about their resignation.
Then came the convocation of a general assembly of deputies from all
the towns and villages of the province, to consider what was to be done
under the circumstances. By these poor ignorant people thus dragged
from their homes, Francia, a person in authority, a lawyer, or learned
man,--for the terms are synonymous in the language of Paraguay,--living
like an ascetic, and affecting a sort of cabalistical knowledge, was
looked upon with a kind of reverential awe, as a person of wonderful
acquirements and sagacity, whose opinions were eagerly sought to guide
them in the weighty matters they were called upon to discuss, whilst on
his own part he was not behindhand in maturing his plans and securing
his influence.
When the Congress met he laid before it the following project for a
government, which, as he anticipated, was regarded as the _ne plus
ultra_ of wisdom, and was adopted by acclamation (_por acclamacion_).
I give the document entire, not only because it has never before
appeared in English, but as the best evidence of the low cunning of
the projector, and of the extreme simplicity and subserviency of those
who adopted it, believing all the time that they were a free and
independent people.
_Plan for a Constitution proposed by Dr. Francia to the General
Congress of Paraguay, and adopted by acclamation._
"ARTICLE I.--The two citizens Don Fulencio Yegros and Don José Gaspar
de Francia shall alone constitute the government, with the title of
'Consuls of the Republic of Paraguay.' They shall have the rank and
honours of Brigadier-Generals, and their commissions as such shall be
signed by the President of this Congress.
"Art. II.--They shall wear, as the insignia of their Consular dignity,
a hat bound with blue, and the tri-coloured scarf of the Republic. They
shall have the like and equal jurisdiction and authority, which they
shall exercise uniformly and conjointly. In consequence, all acts of
the Government shall be signed by both.
"Art. III.--Their first duty shall be the preservation, security, and
defence of the Republic, with all the vigilance, judgment, and activity
required under existing circumstances.
"Art. IV.--There shall henceforward be no Presidency.
"Art. V.--All the forces of the Province shall be under the joint
command in chief of the two Consuls.
"Art. VI.--Nevertheless, all the active and effective troops of every
grade, as well as all the arms and ammunition, shall be equally
divided, and placed at the disposal, half and half, of each Consul, and
each shall have his own separate barracks and magazines under his own
command.
"Art. VII.--There shall be two battalions of infantry, each to consist
of three or four companies for the present, or of more if necessary; so
that each Consul shall have his separate battalion, of which he shall
be the chief and commandant exclusively: he shall also have the command
of one of the two companies of artillery; Consul Yegros shall command
the first, and Consul Francia the second; the latter shall form his own
battalion, towards which he shall be at liberty to take the fifth part
of that commanded by Consul Yegros.
"Art. VIII.--The officers and men of these corps shall be approved
of by their respective Chiefs, the said Consuls; but all officers'
commissions shall be signed by both jointly, though they may be
proposed by their own commanders respectively: in like manner, if it
should be necessary to try them for any offence, it shall be before the
two Consuls jointly.
"Art. IX.--The Consuls shall preside over the tribunals in turn for
four months at a time each, with the title of 'Consul in Turn,' and not
'Consul Presiding,' lest that designation should give rise to mistakes.
Consul Francia shall take the first turn, and in all cases, when the
turn comes round, a notice of it, signed by both, shall be inserted in
a book, and sent to the Cabildo of the city for their information.
"Art. X.--A chamber shall be set apart in the Government House for the
Tribunal of the Consuls: it shall be open during the hours of office,
and its forms shall be regulated by the Consul in Turn for the time
being.
"Art. XI.--The Secretary shall take cognisance of such cases on which
doubts may arise, and which are not hereby provided for.
"Art. XII.--It is left to the will and prudence of the two Consuls
to regulate by common accord all that may be requisite for the due
despatch of the business of the State, in all its branches; as well
as to appoint one or, if necessary, two secretaries; also to create a
superior tribunal of appeal, to determine, according to law, as a Court
of Last Resort, such cases as it may be necessary to refer to it.
"Art XIII.--If either of the two Consuls should die or resign, the
other shall proceed within a month to call together the General
Congress of the Province, which shall consist of _one thousand
Deputies_, chosen, like the present, by popular election; and it shall
be a fundamental, general, perpetual, and invariable law and rule, that
henceforward such General Congress of the Province shall assemble every
year, convoked in the same manner, and to consist of the aforesaid
number of one thousand representatives; and the day for their meeting
shall always be on the 15th of October: and the necessary convocation
and summonses shall be issued in consequence by the middle of every
month of September, in order that the Province may duly, and at least
once a year, meet as a free and sovereign people, to deliberate on what
may be most conducive to the general good, to improve, if necessary,
its government, to provide remedies for abuses, and to take all such
measures as may be suggested by the wisdom of experience.
"Art. XIV.--These rules shall be observed until altered by any future
Congress, and shall be copied into the Book of the Resolutions of
Government.
"Art. XV.--The Consuls shall immediately appear before the present
Sovereign Congress to swear to observe faithfully, and to cause to be
observed, these rules and regulations. The same oath shall be also
forthwith administered by their order to all the officers of the
troops, and by the officers to the soldiers, whereof a proper record
shall be inserted in the archives of the Congress; and whoever shall
refuse to take the said oath shall be dismissed the service, and
punished as though he had broken it.
"Art. XVI.--The Province adopts the forms, as well as the number of
Representatives assembled in the actual Congress, and the Government
shall make no change in either one or the other.
"_Done and Signed at Assumption,
the 12th October, 1813._"
Francia, having thus obtained one-half the power he aimed at, was not
long ere he secured the other. When the thousand deputies met, in
virtue of the 13th article of the Constitution, it was intimated to
them that the substitution of one Governor for a pair of Consuls would
be a great improvement; and Don Gaspar was, as a matter of course,
elected sole Dictator, of the Republic of Paraguay.
His nomination in the first instance was for three years; at the
expiration of which time he took care to have his power confirmed for
life. The Deputies who passed this act, in their simplicity, returned
to their homes exulting in an arrangement whereby they were saved all
further trouble, whilst the tyrant they had set up commenced a reign
which, for systematic selfishness, cruelty, and unrestrained despotism,
is almost unparalleled in the history of any country.
His first object, as may be supposed, was to put down all opposition;
and this he did by imprisoning, banishing, or putting to death every
individual of wealth or influence who could in any way interfere with
him in the exercise of his despotic sway:--his spies were in every
house, the most trivial expression of dissatisfaction was construed
into treason, and ere long no man dared to speak to his neighbour for
fear of being denounced: thus he silenced by terror all opposition from
within; and, lest any should be attempted from without, he proceeded to
restrict the communication with the adjoining provinces, and at last to
establish a system of non-intercourse which for nearly twenty years he
has rigorously enforced, and will doubtless continue to do so as long
as he lives. The only trade, if trade it can be called, which of late
years has been carried on, has been upon his own account, and such as
has been necessary to further his own policy of habituating the lower
classes to look to him, and to him only, for the supply of all their
wants. His mode of managing this business is as singular as all the
rest of his proceedings. When he wants an assortment of foreign goods,
a permit is sent over to the adjoining province of Corrientes for a
vessel to proceed to the opposite port of Nembucú; on her arrival
there, the invoice of the cargo is immediately forwarded to him at
Assumption, from which, after selecting such articles as he requires,
he orders a quantity of yerba-maté to be put on board in payment. There
is no appeal from his own valuation: no one is allowed to go on shore,
and the ship is sent back as soon as the yerba is delivered:--the
article itself is in such demand, from his having stopped the trade
in it, that the people of Corrientes are glad to get it upon his own
terms. He is the owner of several shops or stores, in Assumption, from
which the goods are afterwards retailed, by his permission, to those
who may stand in need of them.
In the same manner for a short period he allowed a peddling traffic to
be carried on between the Brazilian Missions beyond the river Uruguay
and the port of Ytapua, opposite to Candelaria, but that he altogether
stopped about ten years ago.
His revenue chiefly arises from properties confiscated by his own
arbitrary judgments, and from tithes in kind upon all articles of
produce, the right to levy which is yearly sold by the government to
the best bidder in each department; the contractors generally underlet
them to others, and they are in consequence rigorously exacted.[56] The
principal expenditure is in the maintenance of a large militia force,
in which every person capable of bearing arms is enrolled and called
upon to do duty in turn. Francia is of course commander-in-chief of the
army, as he is the head of the church, the law, and every other branch
of the administration.
When I arrived in the River Plate, in 1824, I found that many British
subjects had been for several years detained in Paraguay by this
monster against their will; and it became my duty in consequence to
make a representation to him upon the subject, and to apply for their
liberation. This I was fortunate enough to obtain, together with the
release of many other Europeans, whom, that it should not appear that
he was granting any special favour to the English, he allowed at the
same time to depart; amongst the rest Messrs. Rengger and Longchamps,
two Swiss gentlemen, who have since published a highly-interesting
account of their detention, and of the state of the country.[57]
He made, however, an exception of M. Bompland, the well-known companion
of Baron Humboldt, whom he had some years before caused to be seized
and carried off by an armed force, sent across the Paranã for the
purpose, whilst engaged in his own inoffensive pursuits in the province
of Corrientes. As there was no accredited French agent at Buenos
Ayres at the time, I took upon myself to make another application to
Francia, specially in favour of an individual in whose fate I could
justly say that all the scientific world was interested; and I further
offered to guarantee the fulfilment of any promise M. Bompland might
himself choose to make, in case of his liberation, to return at once
to Europe. I wrote in the same sense to M. Bompland, and enclosed my
letter, open, to the Dictator, to forward to its destination if he
approved of it. But, instead of doing so, he returned it to me, with a
rude intimation that that must close our correspondence.[58]
I believe he was disappointed at finding that I could not concur with
him in his notion of opening a direct trade between Great Britain and
Paraguay, on which it appeared he had long set his heart, the rather
as he expected thereby to be able to show to his own subjects his
independence of his neighbours, and especially of the Buenos Ayreans.
That so extraordinary a state of things should so long have existed
is I believe entirely to be ascribed to the miserable weakness of the
adjoining provinces, which, had they been able to make the slightest
combined effort, might long ago have put an end to the tyrannical rule
of this crazy old despot. Nature will probably do this ere long, when
it may be expected that Paraguay will once more join the confederation
of her sister provinces.
FOOTNOTES:
[53] The same saints are invoked to keep down the rats--another
plague of these countries--attracted, no doubt, by the smell of beef
everywhere, as they are in the _abattoirs_ of Paris. The eleven
thousand Virgins were the guardian angels against the locusts.
[54] The best sort of tea, in which the Indians paid their annual
tribute to the Crown.
[55] The Indians, under the system of the Jesuits, had been accustomed
to work _in community_ for a common stock, out of which all the wants
of every individual were regularly and adequately provided for.
[56] A commutation of these tithes for a fixed revenue was agreed upon
between the church and the municipal government of Assumption at an
early period of the Spanish rule in that country.
[57] The Reign of Don Gaspar de Francia in Paraguay, being an account
of a six years' residence in that Republic, by Messrs. Rengger and
Longchamps, translated, 1827.
[58] M. Bompland has since obtained his liberty, after a detention of
nine years.
CHAPTER XIII.
THE CENTRAL PROVINCES.
CORDOVA, LA RIOJA, SANTIAGO, TUCUMAN, CATAMARCA, SALTA.
CORDOVA. Government. Pastoral Habits of the People.
Productions. LA RIOJA. Population, &c. Famatina Mines.
Evils arising from the present subdivision of the
Provincial Governments. SANTIAGO DEL ESTERO. The Sandy
Desert or Traversia. Quichua Language. Productions, &c.
The Salado navigable to the Paranã. The Chaco. Mass of
native Iron found there. Theory of its Meteoric Origin
questionable. Account of the native Iron from Atacama.
TUCUMAN. Delightful Climate. Mines--little worked. Richness
of the Vegetation. Declaration of Independence of the
Provinces made there in 1816. CATAMARCA. Population, &c.
Original Inhabitants--their long Wars with the Spaniards.
SALTA. Divisions, Population, Government, Climate, Rivers.
The Vermejo, and its Affluents from Tarija and Jujuy.
Valuable Productions of this Province. Labour of the Mataco
Indians obtainable, and preferable to that of Europeans in
such Latitudes. Importance of inland Steam Navigation urged.
In proceeding now to give such information as I have been able to
collect respecting the state of the provinces on the road to Peru, and
to the westward of it, I shall take them in their geographical order,
although it may be as well to observe that they were not, as may be
supposed, originally conquered and settled by the discoverers of the
Rio de la Plata. Those adventurers, following the course of the river
Paraguay, reduced to subjection the warlike tribes they found upon its
shores, and, navigating its higher branches, after incredible hardships
and many valiant deeds, succeeded in opening a communication with their
countrymen in Peru; but they made no attempt to possess themselves of
the vast extent of country lying to the westward of them.
The discovery of those regions was reserved for the followers of
Almagro, who, after the conquest of Peru, marched southward to take
possession of Chile, in fulfilment of his agreement with Pizarro;
and his successors laid claim to them as part of the jurisdiction
originally allotted to him in virtue of that agreement--a pretension
which gave rise to many contentions amongst the chiefs who first
established themselves in those parts; nor were they put an end to
until, by the king's authority, these settlements, comprising Tucuman,
Santiago del Estero, the towns in the valley of Catamarca, and many
others since destroyed, were erected into a distinct and separate
province called Tucuman, from the chief of the Calchaqui tribes which
inhabited them. This was in 1563, some years before the existence of
Buenos Ayres. Nor was it indeed till nearly half a century after De
Garay had founded his settlement there that they became politically
connected, and were united under one and the same government.
PROVINCE OF CORDOVA.
The province of Cordova, after that of Buenos Ayres, is the most
important of the Union. According to a census taken in 1822-23, the
population then amounted to something more than 85,000 souls, of which
from 12,000 to 14,000 lived in the city.
It is ruled by a governor, who is elective by a provincial junta
occasionally convoked, and whose power is almost arbitrary; he has the
command of all the forces and militia of the province, and has the
power of reversing, on appeal, all decisions of the tribunals.
It is bounded by the province of Santiago del Estero to the north, and
Santa Fé to the east, and on the western side by the mountain-ranges
generally known as the Sierra de Cordova. From these ranges descend
many rivers and streams which irrigate and fertilise the plains below;
amongst which may be enumerated the Rio San Miguel, the Tortoral, the
Carnero, the Primero, Segundo, Tercero, Quarto, and Quinto: of these
the Tercero is the only one which reaches the Paranã; all the rest are
lost in the flat intervening plains. It has been ascertained that very
little is requisite to render the Tercero navigable for boats from the
Paranã to within about thirty leagues of the city, whereby a water
communication might be opened, which would save much of the present
expensive and tedious land carriage of the productions not only of
Cordova, but of the provinces of Cuyo, to Buenos Ayres.
The perpetual irrigation of so many streams gives rise to a constant
supply of excellent pasturage for cattle and sheep, the facility of
rearing which may in some measure account for the preference evinced
by the people for pastoral over agricultural pursuits. These habits
occasion the country population to be much scattered: they congregate
but little in the towns; and the principal places after the capital,
Conception, Ranchos, and Carlotta, are at the best but wretched
villages.
In travelling from Buenos Ayres after passing the post of Frayle Muerto
on the river Tercero, the aspect of the country begins to change:
it becomes undulated, and at last there is an end of the monotonous
scenery of the Pampas, throughout which not a tree is to be seen save
the solitary Umbú, standing like a giant land-mark in the boundless
plain.
The traveler's eye is relieved by the appearance of woods and forests
which become more dense as the Sierra is approached. The trees are for
the most part varieties of the mimosa family, thickly set with thorns;
and so marked is this peculiarity in those parts, that I recollect a
gentleman from Cordova who came to Buenos Ayres whilst I was there,
expressing something more than common surprise at finding that the
greater part of the trees which grew in the gardens about the city, and
which were probably chiefly of European origin, were not covered with
thorns like those of his own province.
The palm-tree is scattered over the valleys in the northern part of the
province, and on the road to Santiago del Estero; and it is the land of
the aloe and cactus in every variety.
The city which gives its name to the province was founded by the
conquerors of Tucuman in 1573; it is situated in lat. 31° 26´ 14",[59]
long. from Ferro, 314° 36´ 45", in a pleasant valley upon the banks of
the river Primero, sheltered from the north and south winds, which,
in the more exposed parts of the province blowing alternately hot and
cold, produce great and sudden variations in the atmosphere, very
trying to the constitutions of the inhabitants.
By the post-road it is 172 leagues distant from Buenos Ayres.
It is related that for many years after its foundation, the inhabitants
were subjected to much inconvenience from the occasional overflowings
of a lake in the neighbouring hills, until an earthquake swallowed up
its waters, and drained it apparently for ever. Much damage, however,
is still done by the mountain-torrents which descend from the Sierra
in the rainy season, and have made it necessary to build strong walls
to save the city from being occasionally inundated.
Limestone and timber being to be had in the immediate neighbourhood,
the houses are generally better built than in other towns in the
interior.
Cordova contains many churches, and is the seat of a university, at
which, in the time of the Old Spaniards, most of the better classes
from all parts of the Vice-Royalty received their education: it was
under the management of the Jesuits, to whom this city owes much of its
importance. It was here they had their principal college (the Colegio
Maximo); and they held large possessions in the neighbourhood, from
whence they derived considerable revenues, the greater part of which
were spent in the foundation and embellishment of the churches, and in
other pious establishments. Here also they had a celebrated library,
rich in manuscript records of their Missions and labours amongst the
Indians, which upon their expulsion was sent to Buenos Ayres. The
printed books formed the nucleus of the present public library in that
city; but the greater part of the manuscripts, and amongst the rest
an unpublished portion of Father Guevara's History, have never since
been seen: they were probably, either sent to Spain or destroyed by
Bucareli, who was charged with the expulsion of the Order; a duty which
he fulfilled with a harshness and illiberality never to be forgotten in
a country which owes all it possesses in the shape of civilization, to
the indefatigable zeal and enlightened spirit of that community.
Out of their confiscated property the university of Buenos Ayres was
subsequently founded; and being more conveniently situated for the
rising generation, it has in proportion diminished the importance of
that of Cordova, which, though still kept up, has dwindled to the scale
of a provincial school.
From the year 1699 Cordova was also the residence of a bishop (removed
from Tucuman), but the see has been vacant since the first years of the
revolution.
The effects of the preponderating influence of the monastic
establishments are still visible in the habits of the generality of
the people; and though the ladies are not all nuns, their manners are
a vast deal more reserved than those either of the capital or of the
other principal provincial towns. As an instance of this, a fair lady
of Buenos Ayres told me she had caused no little scandal whist on a
visit to some of her Cordova relations, by insisting on dancing at
a ball with a male partner, instead of with one of her own sex, an
innovation which greatly horrified the mamas. Captain Andrews, too,
has given a lively account of the alarm he unwittingly occasioned
by a like breach of decorum in offering his arm to a young lady on
going to dinner. These scruples, however, have I believe, since been
much modified, and I am told that ladies and gentlemen now dance
country-dances together at Cordova, much as they do in other parts of
the world, in spite of the fears of the mamas and the frowns of the
priests.
Living is very cheap and provisions abundant, the wants of the people
few, and their hospitality unbounded; their kindness, indeed, to
strangers, is spoken of by all who have been amongst them.
Cordova at present forms a sort of centre of communication between the
Upper Provinces and Buenos Ayres. Its own produce, consisting chiefly
of hides and wool, is all sent to the capital, whence it receives
European manufactured goods in exchange.
If steam navigation were established on the Paranã between Buenos
Ayres and Santa Fé, Cordova, as well as the provinces further north,
would share in its advantages, and would be more easily supplied
through Santa Fé, by the road which runs nearly in a direct line
between the two cities; whilst the shorter line of communication thus
opened between the provinces of Cuyo and those on the Paranã, passing
necessarily through Cordova, would fully compensate to the people
of that place for any loss they might sustain in consequence of the
transit trade from Buenos Ayres to the Upper Provinces being turned in
another direction.
The people of Cordova and Santa Fé would also once more have a joint
interest in checking the inroads of the Indians from the Chaco, and by
a better combination of their joint means might be enabled to protect
their frontiers more effectually and perhaps at less expense than
either province is now at for the maintenance of the militia which is
requisite for its separate defence.
Cordova, owing to the miserable weakness of the adjoining governments
of both Santa Fé and San Luis, is obliged at present to support a large
armed force to protect her frontiers, not only from the savages of the
Chaco, but from those of the Pampas.
PROVINCE OF LA RIOJA.
To the west of the province of Cordova, across the Sierra, lies La
Rioja, formerly a dependency of that government, but now dignified with
the title of an independent province, divided into four departments,
viz., Arauco, Guandacol, the Llaños, and Famatina. It is nominally
under the rule of a governor and a municipal junta of five members.
The city from which it takes its name was founded in 1591, at the foot
of the Sierra de Velasco, a granitic range, and is situated, according
to a MS. in my possession, in latitude 29° 12´, though I know not
upon whose authority. In 1824 the population did not amount to more
than 3500 souls, though the whole province may contain from 18,000 to
20,000. Arauco, which is the most northern department, contains about
3000, chiefly occupied in the cultivation of vineyards, from which they
make 8000 or 10,000 small barrels annually, of a strong sweet wine,
which is sent to Cordova and the neighbouring provinces.
Guandacol, which lies to the westward, beyond the range of Famatina,
and along the base of the Cordillera of Chile, contains about 1500
inhabitants,--chiefly congregated in the towns of Guandacol and
Vinchina. They are employed in agriculture, and, at a particular
season, in hunting the vicuñas in the Cordillera, the wool of which
forms a valuable article of trade:--the flesh is an article of food.
The Llaños, which lie to the south of La Rioja, constitute a rich
grazing district, in which about 20,000 head of cattle are annually
bred. The inhabitants are calculated to be about 6000.
The department of Famatina, of which Chilecito is the principal place,
lies to the west of La Rioja; it contains 5000 or 6000 inhabitants,
who, like those of Arauco, are much engaged in the cultivation of their
vineyards, from which they make 6000 or 8000 barrels of wine yearly.
It takes its name from the famous mineral range of Famatina, distant
from La Rioja about thirty leagues:--this range is described to extend
for fifty leagues; in the centre is the Nevado, a lofty peak covered
with perpetual snow,--its geological formation is chiefly gneiss and
clay-slate; but it is specially celebrated for the richness of its
silver ores, which are said to surpass in intrinsic value those of
Potosi,--the extreme remoteness and inclemency of their situation,
however, accessible only by rugged and difficult mountain paths,
has been a constant bar to their being worked to any extent, and as
yet they may be said to be only superficially known: nevertheless
a mint was established at La Rioja, at which some gold and silver
coins have been struck; and, in 1824 and 1825, during the rage for
mining speculations in South America, companies were formed for the
working of those of Famatina:--those schemes, however, only ended
in disappointment to all concerned in them, not from any scarcity,
I believe, of the precious metals, but from miscalculations and
mismanagement, and an entire ignorance of the political state of the
country. In such remote parts it has been but too sadly proved how
little foreigners can calculate upon any effectual protection either
for their property or their persons. It is idle to talk of contracts
or title-deeds where the only real law is the will of some petty
despot, whose necessities or interests, direct or indirect, will always
overrule all other considerations. That such should be the state of La
Rioja is not surprising, when its geographical position is considered,
which cuts it off from almost all intercourse with the more civilised
parts of the republic. The roads which lead to it, if roads they can
be called, which are hardly passable by mules, are as bad as they can
be, whilst the distances by these circuitous paths to the nearest of
the other provincial towns are enormous. From La Rioja to Cordova it is
114 leagues, to Mendoza 159, and to Buenos Ayres by the nearest beaten
route 287. To Guasco or Copiapo, the nearest towns in Chile, the length
of the route by the Cordillera of Guandacol is 130 leagues:--this pass
is said to be easy of transit, and has been often used to convey goods
across the Cordillera from Chile, when the communication with Buenos
Ayres has been closed.
The people, as might be expected, are in a lamentable state of
ignorance. The governor himself, in sending me an account of his
province, confessed that the only school in it was one established in
the town of La Rioja, where the instruction was entirely limited to
reading and writing, and that, for want of support, was often closed.
If the establishment of the present federal system be found of any real
advantage, or gratifying to the ambition of some other provinces, the
local situation and means of which may induce them to look forward with
any confidence to improving their social condition; on the other hand
I fear it must be fatal to those which, like La Rioja, are necessarily
thrown by it upon resources which are palpably inadequate either to
ensure them any tolerably efficient government for the present, or
any likelihood of an improvement in their condition hereafter. It
seems to me that the only means of saving them from lapsing into a
state of semi-barbarism is to make them, as before, dependencies of
their more powerful neighbours:--nor would they alone benefit by such
an arrangement; a concentration of the Republic into half-a-dozen
instead of twice the number of provincial governments (as was
originally contemplated when it was divided into provinces in 1813 and
1814), would render each in itself infinitely more respectable, and
better able to maintain its own independence, whilst it would vastly
facilitate the management of all their national interests and affairs
by the government of Buenos Ayres.
The provinces to the north of Cordova and La Rioja originally formed
only two governments, according to the division established by the
National Congress in 1814:--that of Tucuman, which included Santiago
del Estero and Catamarca; and that of Salta with Jujuy, Oran, and
Tarija; but these have since subdivided themselves, and instead of
two now form five distinct governments,--viz., Santiago, Tucuman,
Catamarca, Salta, and Tarija,--the latter of which has become united to
Bolivia: of the others, the first, after leaving Cordova, is Santiago
del Estero.
SANTIAGO DEL ESTERO.
The distance from the city of Cordova to that of Santiago del Estero
is 110 leagues by the post-road. Portezuela is the first station
beyond the jurisdiction of Cordova, shortly after which commences what
is called the Travesia, a vast sandy zone thirty to forty leagues in
breadth, for the most part covered with a saline efflorescence, and
producing a salsola, from the ashes of which the inhabitants extract
soda. It borders the Sierra de Cordova to the north, and extends west
as far as La Rioja, running southward nearly to San Luis. In this arid
district the sultry heat of the north wind, which is very prevalent in
the summer season, is almost insufferable.
My intelligent correspondent Dr. Redhead, who has lived for more
than a quarter of a century in the upper provinces, and to whom I am
indebted for some of the most valuable of my information respecting
them, speaking of its geological appearance, observes in one of his
letters how forcibly he had been led to conjecture that the southern
part of the province of Santiago must once have been a sea-coast. "Its
sandy hillocks, he says, always reminded him of those on the shores
of Flanders:"--certain it is, that throughout the whole extent of
this sandy zone, from Ambargasta to Noria, the level of the country
becomes very much depressed, and falls very nearly to that of Buenos
Ayres; thus in the very heart of the continent, at a distance of 700
miles direct from the sea, we have a considerable tract of land hardly
elevated above its immediate shores.
The following table of barometrical observations, taken by Dr. Redhead,
will not only show the variations in the height of the country
intervening between Buenos Ayres and Santiago, but also of that to the
northward, along the high road, as far as Tupiza in Peru:--
Barometrical Observations, made on the road from Buenos Ayres to
Potosi, by Dr. Redhead:--
+---------+---------------------+---------+-------+--------+-------+
|Distance | | | | | |
|from one | | | | | |
|place to | | | | | |
|another |Point of Observation |Barometer|Thermo-| Date | Hour |
| | | | meter | | |
|Post | | | | | |
|leagues | | | | | |
+---------+---------------------+---------+-------+--------+-------+
| 134 |Rio Tercero from } | | | | |
| | Buenos Ayres } | 28·945 | 86 |Feb. 11 |11 a.m.|
| 3 |Cordova | 28·400 | 86 | 20 | 4 p.m.|
| 14 |Sin-Sacate | 27·990 | 75 |Mar. 12 |11 a.m.|
| 22 |San Pedro | 26·990 | 60 | 17 | 6 a.m.|
| 4 |Durasno | 27·300 | 73 | -- | 9 a.m.|
| 4 |Piedritas | 27·500 | 72 | -- | Noon. |
| 4 |Pozo del Tigre | 27·550 | 71 | -- | 5 p.m.|
| 6 |Portezuela | 27·860 | 69 | 18 | Noon |
| 6 |Ambargasta } | 28·875 | 67 | 19 | 9 a.m.|
| 6 |Punta del Monte} The | 29·260 | 82 | -- | 4 p.m.|
| 6 |Salinas } Travesia| 29·600 | 68 | 20 | 6 a.m.|
| 14 |Noria } | 29·400 | 76 | -- | 2 p.m.|
| 24 |Santiago del Estero | | | | |
| 40 |Tucuman | 27·563 | 75 |Feb. 10 | |
| 100 |Jujuy | | | | |
| 30 |Humaguaca | 21·415 | 57 | June 2 | 4 p.m.|
| 8 |Cueba | 21·200 | 54 | 1 | |
| 3 |Abra de Cortaderas | | | | |
| 3 |Colorados | 19·350 | 50 | May 31 | 8 a.m.|
| 6 |Cangrejos | 19·625 | 32 | 30 | 6 p.m.|
| 9 |Quiaca | 19·300 | 50 | 29 | 4 p.m.|
| 5 |Cumbre del Cerro} | 19·100 | 60 | 28 |11 a.m.|
| | de Berque } | | | | |
| 4 |Berque | 19·975 | 54 | 27 | 4 p.m.|
| 5 |Talina | 20·800 | 56 | 26 | 9 a.m.|
| 8 |Tupiza | 26·260 | 60 | 25 | 9 a.m.|
+---------+---------------------+---------+-------+--------+-------+
_Note._--At Buenos Ayres the mean of the barometer for the month of
March, 1822, was 29·61.
In the upper parts of the Sierra de Cordova granite everywhere breaks
through the surface, and innumerable fragments of it may be traced
in the descent to the Travesia, whilst beyond that sandy zone there
is not a vestige of it throughout the rest of the road to Potosi,
the formation the whole way being of blue argillaceous schist and
slate, with occasional strata of limestone and red sandstone. In the
neighbourhood of Potosi, however, and on the tops of some of the
highest mountains in its vicinity, Helms tells us that he fell in with
a pretty thick stratum of granite pebbles rounded by the action of
water. How, he says, could these masses of granite have been deposited
here? Have they been rolled hither by a general deluge, or by some
later partial revolution of nature? His astonishment would have been
infinitely greater had he known that marine shells are to be found
on the lofty mountain of Chorolque (about twelve leagues north-west
from Tupiza, between Salta and Potosi), the summit of which has been
determined by Dr. Redhead to be 16,530 feet above the level of the sea.
The word Chorolque is corrupted from Churucolque, signifying in the
Quichua tongue that the mountain contains silver and shells. The
Spaniards, however, little suspected that the latter were to be found
there, till, in 1826, an enterprising Frenchman ascended the mountain
and brought down specimens which established beyond doubt the fact.
A further study of that language might lead the scientific inquirer
to many an important discovery. The disposition of the Peruvians
for observation is well known, and their nomenclature of places is
generally expressive more or less either of the nature of the soil, or
some peculiarity attached to it: thus a person well versed in Quichua
is beforehand aware of what he is to see. Peutocsi, for instance,
difficult to be properly pronounced by an European, and corrupted
into Potosi, signifies, "_It is said to have burst forth_:" such must
have been their tradition, which the very appearance of this singular
cone, standing alone and distinct from the system of mountains which
surrounds it, and the hot springs in its vicinity, would seem to
corroborate.
It is in the province of Santiago that the Quichua is first met with.
The Jesuits reduced it to a written language, and published a grammar
and dictionary of it in Peru.
The city of Santiago is a miserable ill-built place, containing not
more than 4000 souls. It is situated in lat. 27° 47´, according to
Azara, upon the banks of a considerable river which rises in the
territory of Tucuman, and running south through this province is
finally lost, under the name of the Rio Dulce, in the great lakes
called the Porongos, to the west of Santa Fé. The whole population of
the province it estimated to be about 50,000; the greater part of which
is much scattered in small villages built along the courses of this
river and of the Salado, which runs parallel to it, and separates the
province on that side from the gran-chaco, or desert, the low lands
along their banks being better suited for the pasturage of cattle and
for cultivation than the other parts of the province. The soil there is
well adapted to the growth of wheat, which is said to yield eighty for
one.
In most parts of the province the cactus may be seen growing to an
unusual size, and the cochineal gathered from it used to form one
of the most valuable productions of this part of the country: from
8000 to 10,000 lbs. of it were annually sent to Chile and Peru. Large
quantities of wild beeswax and honey were also collected in the woods
and sent to the other provinces, in which they were always in demand;
but the civil dissensions which have of late years been so frequent
in these provinces have checked the industry of the people, who have
almost entirely abandoned their old pursuits, and given up their
yearly gatherings of these once valued productions. This is the more
to be regretted as they are said to be naturally an enterprising and
intelligent race, less given to habitual indolence than some of the
other inhabitants of these latitudes. The women manufacture ponchos and
coarse saddle-cloths, or blankets, which are sold in great numbers to
the people of Tucuman and Salta.
To the eastward of the river Salado lies the vast region commonly
called the Gran-chaco, or desert, which extends to the Paranã, and
reaches north as far as the province of Chiquitos, solely inhabited by
Indians of various tribes, who, safe in their own forests and jungles,
have there found a refuge from Spanish domination and persecution. It
is through this territory that the rivers Pilcomayo and Vermejo wind
their tortuous courses to the Paranã from the most remote parts of the
interior of the Upper Provinces.
Some way beyond the Salado, about seventy leagues east from Santiago
(in lat 27° 28´), was found that very remarkable specimen of native
iron which I sent to this country some years ago, and which is now
deposited in the British Museum. Its existence was first made known by
some of the people of Santiago, who had passed through that part of
the country in their journeys to the forests beyond to collect honey;
and their reports, which were transmitted to Buenos Ayres, induced
the Viceroy, in 1788, to send Don Reuben de Celis, an officer in the
King's service, to examine it. His report upon it was published in the
Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London for 1788, and
excited much speculation at the time.
As in those times the working of iron was forbidden in South America,
after sundry specimens of it were forwarded to Lima, to Buenos Ayres,
and to Spain, the remainder lay neglected for many years in its
original site.
In the beginning of the struggle for independence, however, when the
Spanish ships of war blockaded Buenos Ayres, iron, amongst other
necessaries, becoming extremely scarce, the people recollected De
Celis's account, with the reports of the Indians, that in the same
parts there were extensive veins of the same mineral; and at a great
expense the mass in question was sent for and brought to Buenos Ayres.
By the time it got there the blockade was over; and as it was evidently
much easier to procure iron from Europe than by a cart-carriage of
1000 miles from the uninhabited wilds of the Chaco, no further trouble
was taken to determine whether or not the Indian reports of its being
procurable in larger quantities were true or not. By way of experiment
a pair of pistols were manufactured from it, which were sent as a
present to the President of the United States, and what remained was
placed at my disposal by the Minister of Buenos Ayres on the occasion
of my signing the treaty with him in 1825, which recognised on the part
of Great Britain the political independence of his country. I sent it
to Sir Humphrey Davy to be placed in the British Museum, hoping that he
would himself have analysed it, and given his opinion respecting its
supposed meteoric origin. The analysis I believe was never made, owing
to his death, which occurred very shortly after the arrival of the iron
in this country.
It seems, however, to have been assumed here that this iron, as a
matter of course, is meteoric, because it contains those admixtures of
nickel and cobalt which accompany other known meteoric productions.
It appears to me that the hypothesis is not very satisfactorily or
conclusively made out.
The mass I sent home weighs about 1400 pounds, and, making allowance
for what may have been taken from it at Buenos Ayres, may probably when
it arrived there have been not much less than a ton weight. Now De
Celis estimates the mass he examined to have been about fifteen tons
weight, and of much larger dimensions: either this therefore is only a
fragment of what he particularly described, or it is another which has
been found in the same part of the country, and if so, is corroborative
of the Indian accounts of there being more in the vicinity. This was
the opinion of Dr. Redhead, who, in writing to me on the subject, says,
"The native iron found in Santiago is not a single mass, as has been
said; there are several, and the most recent accounts describe them
as huge trunks with deep roots (I use the expression of the natives),
supposed to communicate with each other."[60]
Dr. Redhead's observation was caused by a discussion which arose here
upon some other specimens of native iron, which he had forwarded to me,
from the desert of Atacama, in Peru, and which were described by the
late Mr. Allan in the Transactions of the Royal Society of Edinburgh
for 1828. They were analysed by Dr. Turner, who found them to contain--
Iron . 93.4
Nickel ... 6.618
Cobalt . 0.535
-------
100.553
a result which he considered decisive concerning their origin, because,
he says, it differs from any compound hitherto described in the earth,
and corresponds exactly both in appearance and composition with other
meteoric iron.
But these opinions differ entirely from the belief of those who
procured the specimens.
That iron is found scattered in large quantities over a plain at the
foot of a mountain a little to the south-west of a small Indian village
called Toconao, ten leagues from San Pedro, the capital of Atacama,
and about eighty from Cobija, on the coast. The tradition there is,
that the fragments have been thrown out by some volcanic explosion from
the side of the neighbouring mountain, in which the people of Toconao
say there is a large _veta_ of pure iron. The Indian who collected
the specimens which I sent to this country was employed to _catear_,
or search for mines; and the nature of his occupation rendered it
requisite for him to be particular in his observations: his account
was, that "they were taken from a heap of the same nature, estimated at
about three hundred-weight, and that they existed at the month of a
_veta_, or vein of solid iron, situated at the foot of a mountain; he
called them '_reventazones_,' or explosions from the mine, or _veta_.
He had been charged to bring a piece of the _veta_ itself, and some of
the rock in which it is embedded, but this he said he could not effect
for want of tools; he therefore contented himself with picking up some
of the pieces that were at the foot of the hill, where the mouth of the
vein opens."
Dr. Redhead says, that in giving him this account the man endeavoured
to give him also some idea of the direction of the vein in the mountain.
Further inquiries were subsequently made, the result of which
corroborated his testimony. The alcalde of Toconao, who had been at
the place, stated that the fragments had issued from a cavity of about
fifteen feet diameter, which, from the nature of the soil, was filling
up. This is sandy, and for three leagues round there is neither wood
nor water nor pasture of any kind. Several persons in San Pedro, and
amongst others one named Gonzales, who had likewise seen the cavity,
gave a similar account.
The Atacama iron is certainly remarkably similar to the specimen of
that met with by Pallas in Siberia, which is to be seen in the British
Museum, but what proof is there of that being meteoric?
The Santiago iron differs from them both in appearance. The Atacama and
Siberian specimens are full of cavities, looking like large sponges or
scoriæ. That from Santiago, on the contrary, is more like a solid lump
of well-kneaded dough.
So long as such specimens were supposed to be of very rare occurrence,
and differing as they do from the character of all other known
minerals, it was not extraordinary that they should have been ascribed
to an extraneous origin; but now that further discoveries have proved
their existence in all parts of the world, and that enormous masses of
similar iron have been met with in the northern parts of America, in
Mexico, Columbia, Peru, Brazil,[61] and the provinces of La Plata, to
speak of that continent alone, I think we may begin to doubt whether
they may not be _bonâ fide_ productions of our own planet, instead of
bringing them from the moon, or elsewhere. On this I shall only quote
another passage from the letters of my excellent correspondent, who
took the trouble to institute the inquiries for me as to the origin
of the specimens from Atacama. "Time," he says, "may perhaps justify
the tradition or opinion of the Indians relative to the origin of
this iron; nor do I know why we should refuse to Nature the power
of reducing in her laboratory a metal so easily separated from its
combinations by the efforts of man."
PROVINCE OF TUCUMAN.
Forty leagues (post distance) beyond Santiago del Estero is situated
the city of San Miguel de Tucuman. It stands (in lat. 27° 10´) on an
elevated plain in a position from which the prospect on every side is
delightful; indeed all accounts agree in describing it as the best
situated town in the republic. The climate, though hot, is dry and
salubrious; and Nature has been so prodigal of her choicest gifts, that
the province of Tucuman well merits its appellation of the garden of
the United Provinces. The population amounts to about 40,000 souls, of
which 7000 or 8000 reside in the city.
After leaving the travesia of Santiago, the road ascends a slightly
inclined plane the whole way to Tucuman, the jurisdiction of which
commences after crossing the river Santiago, there called the _Rio
Hondo_, or deep river, which separates the two provinces, and is
formed by the confluence of many streams which rise in the mountains
to the west. To the eastward the Salado continues to be the general
boundary-line separating it from the Chaco: to the north the river
Tala divides it from the territory of Salta; and to the west and
south-west the lofty mountains of Aconquija separate it from Catamarca.
The highest peak of this range is covered with perpetual snow, and is
said to be above 15,000 feet above the level of the sea. It abounds
in mineral treasures, and contains ores of gold, silver, copper, and
lead; but the toil and difficulty attendant upon mining operations in
those parts of the sierra where they are to be found have caused them
to be much neglected, and the mining, if mining it can be called, is
now confined to a few wretched people scattered amongst the hills, who
occasionally collect small quantities of silver, which they bring down
to the city for sale. I have had some of the specimens of silver so
collected, which are singularly rich and beautiful.
The _mita_, and other oppressive enactments have will nigh destroyed
the unfortunate race whose forced labour brought to light the mineral
wealth of these regions. The _mamelucho_, as the gaucho of Tucuman is
called, the horseman of the plains, with the help of his wife, who
makes the greater part of his clothing, has almost everything he wants
about him. He knows not, and therefore needs not, those comforts which
become wants in less genial climes, and where civilization is more
advanced. Free as the air he breathes, he gallops over boundless plains
unfettered by the slightest restraint upon his own inclinations. He has
no temptation to quit such a life for the fatigues and dangers of an
occupation which he considers as degrading,[62] to bury himself under
ground, and to seek by the sweat of his brow treasures of which he does
not stand in need. His cattle are the finest in the republic; and the
least possible cultivation and labour is sure to yield in return not
only the necessaries, but what in his opinion are the luxuries of life.