114 THE WORLD'S MEAT FUTURE 



Europeans. The export freezing trade of the Plate does not 

 touch this class of stock ; it is the roughage of the Republic, 

 and prices rule accordingly. From 10 dollars to 15 dollars 

 gold is the common quotation for fat steers or cows. The 

 number of animals treated by the Entre Rios factories is very 

 large, while the total that vanishes by way of the Mesopotamia 

 every year into the choppers' yards and the melting pots is 

 over half a million. 



" From the extreme X.E. corner stretching towards the 

 centre of the Entreriano Peninsula lies one of the unknown 

 and wholly unexplored portions of the Argentine Republic. 

 The great lagoon of ' shining waters,' the ' Ubera,' lays under 

 tribute directly or indirectly some 2000 square miles of land, 

 although the source of the rivers Corrientes and Merinay, its 

 level seldom alters, nor is it sensibly affected by prolonged 

 droughts. Its neighbourhood is heralded by an endless suc- 

 cession of ' tacurus ' (red ant heaps), which stand from 3 to 

 6 ft. above the ground, or water, as the case may be. When 

 dry. the whole landscape much resembles a g : gantic Chinese 

 graveyard, while the holes under these heaps are the refuge 

 of innumerable snakes. On the edge of the permanent water 

 grows a high, almost impenetrable, fringe of rushes. In the 

 inner lake the fecundity of aquatic growth under a tropical 

 sun has led to the formation of islands, that change their shape 

 and station as the capricious winds and floods direct. These 

 floating ' terra firma ' harbox r, amongst other inmates, the 

 gigantic anaconda, a water -snake, that attains over 20 ft. in 

 length, and in girth the thickness of a man's body. Here it 

 lies, as the natives firmly believe, waiting to devour the hap- 

 less gaucho, horse, and all, who shall wander lost in the marshy 

 labyrinths. 



" It is easy from our seat in the railway car (but a few years 

 ago on its first journey through the province) to wave aside 

 such idle tales with the smoke of an after-dinner cigar, but the 

 half-Indian peasant of Corrientes is but a step removed from 

 the serf of the Spanish occupation. Modern sophistry will 

 leave him unconvinced until modern engineering drains the 

 fertile basin, and his superstitions vanish with the miasma of 

 the rush -grown swamps. 



