52 THE OASES OF THE NORTH-WEST 



cussion or examination, the batches that were offered 

 them. The correspondent of the Telegrafo complains 

 bitterly of these caballeritos who came from Peru with 

 their 100,000 piastres, and raised the price at Salta, 

 alleging that their instructions were to get mules at 

 any cost. 



Robertson gave in 1813 the recollections of a mule- 

 dealer as to the convoys of mules between Santa Fe 

 and the Andes, which had already ceased at that time. 

 Each convoy or arreo comprised 5,000 to 6,000 mules. 

 They came from Entre Rios, or even from the Uruguay, 

 whence they were brought, after crossing the Parana, 

 to the Santa Fe ranches. The Santa Fe breeders owned 

 the best part of the land on the left bank of the river. 

 The expedition also included thirty waggons of goods 

 and 500 draught-oxen ; and fifty gauchos were in charge 

 of it. The main expense was then tobacco and yerba. 

 One feature of this mule traffic that is emphasized in 

 all the descriptions is that it was divided into two 

 stages, with an interval between them, for breaking 

 in. As we have already learned from Azcarate, Cordoba 

 Santa Fe, Santiago, and Salta kept the mules for two 

 or three years before sending them to Peru. Cordoba 

 and Santiago del Estero seem to have been important 

 in connection with the industry of breaking in the mules. 



The sending of cattle on foot to Bolivia and Chile is 

 now only a subsidiary element of the national economy, 

 but it is not yet quite extinct, as the table on p. 53 

 shows. 



Whatever its point of departure, the traffic in stock 

 always passed through the valles. Transport of cattle 

 was particularly difficult in the Argentine Andes. The 

 chief obstacles were not the elevation of the passes or 

 the steepness of the roads, but the scarcity of water 

 and the extent of the travesias, which were equally poor 

 in pasturage and water, and had to be crossed rapidly 

 by doubling the stages. The difficulties of the journey 

 were very profitable to the oases that lay along the 



