THE SPANISH FORTS 25 



of Buenos Aires was on the nearer side of the Salado, 

 and was bordered on the south-east and north-west 

 by the fortresses of Chascomus, Monte, Lobos, Navarro, 

 Areco, Salto, Rojas, and Melincue. The proposal of 

 D'Azara to extend it as far as the Salado was not 

 carried out, and it was not until 1828 that there was 

 a fresh advance westward. 1 



The new frontier, which would not be altered until 

 1875, passed by Veinte Cinco de Mayo and Blanca 

 Grande, at the north-western extremity of the Sierra 

 de Tandil. It included the entire region which lies 

 between the Sierra de Tandil and the lower Salado, 

 where the village of Tandil had been established in 

 1823. In addition, a line of forts stretched from Blanca 

 Grande in the south-west to Bahia Blanca. The 

 expedition sent in search of a port south of the mouth 

 of the Plata had not found any nearer site that was 

 suitable. But Bahia Blanca was to remain an isolated 

 advance post until 1880, sharply separated from both 

 the colonized zone of the Pampas and the establish- 

 ments on the Patagonian coast. 



While the cultivated area was thus growing toward 

 the south, it was being reduced in the north of the 

 province of Buenos Aires and the south of Cordoba. 

 The lands of the lower Rio Cuarto were not occupied. 

 About 1860 (Martin de Moussy) the farthest establish- 

 ments in this sector were S. Jose de la Esquina and 

 Saladillo on the Tercero. The road to Chile by the 

 Rio Cuarto, Achiras, and San Luis was threatened. 

 The advance of colonization in this zone was at first 

 in the west to Villa Mercedes on the Rio Quinto. The 



1 F. de Azara, Diario de un reconocimiento de las guardias y fortines 

 que guarnecen la linea frontera de Republica Argentina (1796, Coll. 

 de Angelis, vol. vi.). The documents collected by de Angelis show 

 clearly that there had been some idea in the middle of the eighteenth 

 century of occupying the whole plain to the east of the Sierra de 

 Tandil. These ideas of expansion, of which D'Azara's plan is another 

 instance, were interrupted by the Revolution (Diario de D. Pedro 

 Pablo Pabon, Coll. de Angelis, iv. etc.), 



