70 THE MOULD' a MEAT F LTV RE 



Government, which appoints to them their military Governors 

 and civil judges. For this additional reason it is ditiicult to 

 generalise concerning Argentina. 



"The first settlers of modern times came to Patagonia from 

 the Falkland Islands. These outlying specks of a former con- 

 tinent luckily for the Republic, form part of the British p]mpire, 

 else to-day the plains of Patagonia might have remained as in 

 the time of Darwin, peopled but by vast herds of guanaco and 

 the scattered tents of some roving Indians. The islands are pre- 

 eminently adapted for the breeding of sheep, and it is calculated 

 that at the present time over 2,000,000 head graze, on the short, 

 wind-swept pastures. Eighteen years ago, the British Govern- 

 ment stopped the sale of fiscal lands. This, combined with the 

 large profits that the well-stocked farms had been yielding, 

 induced certain pioneers to try their luck on the reputed barren 

 mainland of Magellan. The shipment of the first flocks over the 

 300 odd miles that separate the island from the treacherous 

 coast, was attended with great risk and loss, but the result amply 

 justified the bold venture. In 1882, the lands now occupied 

 by the Patagonian Sheep-farming Company were grazed by only 

 18,000 sheep. These same lands now support within the 



boundary-fences close on 300,000 head. This total has been 

 arrived at with no further purchase of stock than those necessary 

 to bring in fresh blood, and in spite of severe winter losses. 



"The first stations were planted close to the entrance of the 

 Straits, and land was rapidly taken up along the first and second 

 Narrows. These necks of the sea are but 2 to 4 miles broad, 

 so it is not surprising, after the five years necessary to get the 

 new stations into working order had passed, to find sheep being 

 shipped over to the fertile shores of the "Tierra Del," as it 

 is dubbed with true Anglo-Saxon brevity. The pastures here 

 are superior to those of the Patagonian coast, on account of the 

 unfailing streams of crystal water that traverse the land in every 

 direction. The climate, moreover, presents fewer extremes, and 

 protection is afforded from the bitter south-west winds by the 

 high ranges of mountains at the back of the open ground. It 

 was doubtless the aspect of these same ranges, viewed by the sea 

 captains cruising along their southern shores that pictured 

 Tierra del Fuego as a^ mass of ice-clad peaks, inhabited only by 

 the bloodthirsty savages that sat perched upon them, anxiously 

 scanning the beach for shipwrecked crews. 



"The commercial capital of all these southern territories is 

 Sandy Point, a town which boasts some 7000 inhabitants, and is 



