182 THE PLAIN OF THE PAMPAS 



Revolutions and wars interrupted the work of taming 

 the cattle. When Galvez went from the Cordoba 

 province to Buenos Aires at the end of the Rosas 

 Government, he was struck by the condition of the 

 ranches.! Many of them had been confiscated, or their 

 owners driven into exile. Cattle were no longer marked, 

 and they had become wild. The troubles of the eman- 

 cipation-period were much less injurious to the Buenos 

 Aires breeders than to those of Entre Rios. The 

 Entre Rios herd was almost annihilated during the 

 revolution, and some of the ranchers of the left bank 

 crossed to the right bank of the Parana. After 1823 

 the pastoral wealth of Entre Rios was rapidly restored, 

 thanks to raids on Brazilian territory. They were 

 so profitable that the whole population took part in 

 them. In 1827 the inhabitants of Bajada went there 

 in such numbers that the town was half deserted. Every 

 day thousands of cattle were collected on the bank 

 of the Uruguay, and crossed the river. Some of them 

 were even taken beyond the Parana, to the Santa 

 Fe province. Woodbine Parish confirms this rapid 

 restoration of Entre Rios, of which D'Orbigny was a 

 witness. But this period of prosperity did not last 

 long. The war with Uruguay, under Rosas, again 

 ruined the Entre Rios ranches, and the drought of 

 1846 helped to scatter the remaining herds. Extensive 

 breeding is only lightly rooted in the soil. The chief 

 centres of production change their locality, as the 

 political circumstances change, from . one part of the 

 Pampean plain to another. 



Primitive breeding affords few examples of periodical 

 migration for the better use of pasturage. In 1822, 

 in the course of a journey amongst the Sierras de Tandil 

 and de la Ventana, Colonel Garcia noticed that the 

 Indians kept their cattle round the temporary lagoons 

 of the plain in the winter, and went up to the mountain- 



I V. Galvez, Memorias de un viejo (Buenos Aires, 3 vols, in i6™<», 

 4th ed., 1889), 



