A YEAR'S JOURNEY 267 



because of the shortage of labour. " The forced 

 levies for the army prevented the Santiaguefios from 

 going to hire themselves, as was their custom, in fear 

 lest they should be compelled to serve." x 



Temporary emigration began, no doubt, with the 

 journeys which brought the northerners to Buenos 

 Aires as drivers of convoys of wagons. Santiaguefios 

 were numerous amongst these troperos. Lorenzo Fazio 

 collected reminiscences of these journeys in the land 

 of the banados* They go back to the first quarter of 

 the nineteenth century, the period before the diversion 

 of the Rio Dulce and the ruin of Salavina and 

 Atamisqui. " My father/' said one of his informants, 

 " drove wagons of wheat to Cordoba, and sometimes 

 to Buenos Aires, where he sold them and bought 

 goods-stuffs in exchange. He bought the wheat at 

 Loreto, Atamisqui or Salavina. It was a year before 

 he got back, because it was necessary to wait for the 

 rain and the growth of the vegetation, otherwise his 

 animals would have died of thirst or hunger on the 

 road." The journeys of the troperos meant a long 

 spell of idleness in the Pampean region, precisely at 

 the harvest season. Naturally, they would lend a 

 hand in it. 



The temporary emigration of the Santiaguefios 

 continued throughout the nineteenth century. It was 

 maintained even during the disturbances under the 

 government of Rosas, which almost entirely put an 

 end to commercial relations between Buenos Aires 

 and the northern provinces. When Galvez passed 

 through the villages on the Rio Dulce he noticed that 

 there were few men in them. They had scattered 

 over the roads or were, as he says, andariegos. Only 

 the women remained. The province of Buenos Aires 

 received the Santiaguefios in crowds, offering their 



1 D'Orbigny, Voyage dans I'Amerique meridionale, vol. i. p. 528. 

 Lorenzo Fazio, Memoria descriptiva de la provincia de Santiago 

 del Ester o (Buenos Aires, 1889). 



