20 Gwrdiner G. Hubbard — South Atnerica. 



pampas, but unable to live in the forests. The gauchos have 

 hunted it for the last three centuries, but it is now jjassing away 

 and will soon be lost to the pampas, as the buffalo has been to 

 the North American prairie. 



The pampas are far better adapted to the raising of cattle 

 than our prairies, for the grass is always green and the winters 

 are milder. Cattle, horses, and sheep imported by the Spaniards 

 and turned on to the pampas rapidly increased, and now immense 

 herds feed on the plains. 



The Indians who inhabit the pampas, instead of being confined 

 to one locality and journeying only by canoe, like the Indians on 

 the Amazon, wander over the length and breadth of the pampas, 

 hunting the ostrich and cattle. The cattle ai'e tended by gauchos, 

 as the cow-boys are called, half-breeds as wild as the herds they 

 tend. Constant warfare exists between the Indians and the 

 gauchos, unless they unite to attack the settlers. After one of 

 the Indian raids the government dug an immense ditch from a 

 river to the Andes and drove the Indians to the farther side, and 

 since then there have been fewer raids — and fewer Indians. 



The land was held in large blocks of many thousand acres, 

 worked by overseers and gauchos. The animals were killed by 

 hundreds of thousands for their skins. This state of things is, 

 however, gradually passing away, for during the last twenty 

 years emigrants from the old world have settled in the country 

 as farmers and planters. 



The fourteen provinces which form the Argentine Republic 

 have never been welded into one nation, and have seldom had a 

 moment's peace. The gauchos have been a continual scourge, and 

 the gaucho generals its rulers and harriers combined. Unfortu- 

 nately, here, as in other Spanish states, one dictator has succeeded 

 another. Thirty presidents, or dictators, have reigned within fifty 

 yeai's. At one time five provinces had each a separate dictator. 

 The neighboring republic of Uruguay, formerly a part of the 

 Argentine Confederation, had 26 revolutions in the twenty-three 

 years from 1864 to 1887. 



For some time Buenos Ayres and its dictator ruled the repub- 

 lic ; then the country provinces rebelled, and civil war ensued ; 

 one province was arrayed against another, and all against Buenos 

 Ayres. The provinces prevailed and the gaucho general, Rosas, 

 occupied Buenos Ayres. Scarcely was this civil war ended when 

 a war arose with the republics of Uruguay and Paraguay. 



