TOPOGRAPHY OF ARGENTINA. 427 



E.OSARIO. 



Rosario, the chief place in the province of Santa Fé, and second largest city in 

 Argentina, owes the foundations of its prosperity to the civil wars. Buenos 

 Ayres having withdrawn from the rest of the Confederation in 1854, the Govern- 

 ment installed at Parana ordered the construction of a railway from Rosario to 

 Cordoba, and at the same time granted a reduction of 18 per cent, on tbe Customs 

 in favour of all vessels ascending the Parana without touching at Buenos Ayres 

 or any other port in the Plate estuary. Rosario at once beneHted by this decree, 

 the more so that it is accessible throughout the year to ships drawing 16 feet, 

 whereas till recently large vessels had to anchor in the offing a great distance 

 from Buenos Ayres. 



Rosario has the further advantage of lying at the bend of the river, where it 

 begins to trend south-east in a line with the estuary, and it has thus become the 

 busiest riverside port in the whole basin. The Cordoba railway has also made it 

 a rival of Buenos Ayres for the direct foreign trade of Argentina. It is now 

 visited by the steamers of no less than fourteen transatlantic companies, which 

 here ship wheat for Europe, alalfa or lucerne for Brazil, metals, hides, and other 

 produce for all parts. 



The aspect of the city is essentially commercial, with piers lined by shipping, 

 quays intersected by rails, warehouses stocked with goods, tramways radiating in 

 all directions, telegraph and telephone wires crossing and re-crossing at every 

 street corner. Rosario is inhabited bj' a population of even a more cosmopolitan 

 character than that of its commercial rival, Buenos Ayres. In England its 

 name is still chiefly associated with colonisation schemes notoriously mismanaged, 

 and ending in disastrous failures. 



The railway from Santa Fé to Corduba was constructed by an English com- 

 pany, which received a concession of all the land for a width of three miles on both 

 sides of the line on the coijdition of colonising the country. Hence, since 1870, 

 Bernstadt, Carcarana, Canada de Gomez, Tortiigas, and other stations have become so 

 many agricultural settlements, peopled, like Esperanza, by Italian, French, Swiss, 

 and German peasants. The English settlers at Canada de Gomez, although 

 specially favoured by the Company, never prospered, and have now been replaced 

 by others from the Continent. 



San Nicolas — Martin Garcia. 



San JSfieolas, chief riverine port between Rosario and Buenos Ayres, is also 

 one of the large cities of the Republic ; it was even, at one time, proposed as the 

 capital of Argentina. It is followed lower down by other busy ports, such as 

 Obligado, where the dictator Rosas attempted to defend the course of the Parana 

 against an Anglo-French squadron in 1845 ; San Pedro, with a good natural har- 

 bour of about 300 acres ; Baradero, where a prosperous Swiss colony was founded 

 in 1856; Zarate, centre, of the numerous insular colonies clustering about the 



