THE REARING OF MULES 51 



mules annually. 1 At the close of the eighteenth century, 

 we read in D'Azara, 60,000 mules were exported ; and 

 Helms gives the same figure. 2 The mules were bought 

 young by Cordoba dealers at Buenos Aires, Santa Fe, 

 and Corrientes, reared at Cordoba, and then sent to 

 Salta, where they were sold in their third year to mule- 

 dealers from Peru. 



An article in the Telegrafo Mercantil of September 9, 

 1801 (reproduced in the Junta de Historia y Numismatica 

 americana, Buenos Aires, 2 vols., 1914-5) contains 

 very valuable information in regard to the mule trade. 

 From 1760 to 1780 Salta sent between 40,000 and 50,000 

 mules annually to Peru. At Salta they were worth 

 ten piastres each before they were broken in, and thirteen 

 or fourteen afterwards ; and they were sold at the age 

 of four years. The arrieros, who conveyed European 

 goods and home products (ropas y frutas), bought a 

 large number of them. The Telegrafo complains that 

 this trade has been gradually transformed. The mules 

 now came from Santa F6 and Cordoba to Salta two 

 years old, and after the invernada they were still, 

 at fair time, barely three years old. They suffered 

 much during the long journey to Lima, and the losses 

 of the caravans were heavy. They could not be loaded 

 for the journey, and, as the arrieros could no longer 

 secure adult and strong animals, the freight to the 

 tableland had risen, to the serious loss of merchants 

 on the coast. The reply of a Potosi mule-dealer 

 (December I3th) clearly shows that the last years of 

 the eighteenth century had been marked by increasingly 

 heavy demands from Peru for Argentine mules. In 

 order to meet these demands the Cordoba breeders had 

 developed production. The buyers, coming to Salta 

 from Lima, Cuzco, and Arequipa, took, without dis- 



1 Azcarate de Biscay, quoted in H. Gibson, La evolution ganadera 

 in Censo agropecuario national Buenos Aires, 1909, vol. iii. 



A. Z. Helms, Voyage dans I'Amerique meridionale (Paris, 1812). 

 The journey was in 1788. 



