ARGENTINA 115 



" Of the two provinces, that more favoured, both by its own 

 resources and by reason of its unique position on the Plate, is 

 undoubtedly Entre Rios. Its rolling lands are composed of a 

 stiff, black alluvium, overlying a subsoil well adapted to the 

 planting of trees. There is little trace here of the sand which 

 makes it so easy for the farmer to break up the flat pampas of 

 Buenos Aires. The limestone deposits near the town of Parana, 

 previous to the discovery of the quarries of Cordoba, set up 

 kilns which supplied the whole Republic. About one-third of 

 the country is covered with open belts of hardwood, in which 

 the Nandubay predominates. This tree grows in the likeness 

 of those straight-stalked, bunch -headed parodies that are 

 palmed off on confiding childhood in Noah's arks — a design 

 which Providence has manifestly created for the purpose of 

 fence-posts. As the land has no companion hills from which 

 to tap its water supply, surface springs are rare, but between 

 the rolling downs run frequent watercourses. Banking these 

 gullies to catch the surface drainage is the commonest and 

 easiest system of providing water to the stock, but it is a broken 

 reed in time of drought, and much of the mortality during 

 recent years can be traced to this cause. Well-water may be 

 found at depths varying from 10 to 50 yards, according to 

 locality. 



" The near outlet of the province to the sea-board, its dower 

 of fair pastures, and its equable climate, have marked it from 

 the earliest days of Spanish occupation as a desirable posses- 

 sion ; yet this very fact has retarded its advance. Happy is 

 the country without a history. Throughout the turbulent 

 growth of the young Republic Entre Rios has been a hotbed 

 of political unrest — the chosen stumping ground of revolu- 

 tionists. It was by way of the Mesopotamia that troops were 

 led to fight Brazil in the early twenties, and Paraguay in the 

 seventies, of last century ; it was across this province that the 

 irrepressible patriots marched who struck for the independence 

 of Uruguay, and it is here that discontented refugees from that 

 small adjoining State have ever found sympathy and a safe 

 refuge. Here it was finally that General Urquiza upheld 

 throughout a whole decade the standard of revolt that led to 

 the overthrow of the dictator Rosas, after the latter had ruled 



