428 AMAZONIA AND LA PLATA. 



delta ; Campana, a busy port on the Parana de las Palmas, with an extensive 

 frozen-meat factory. 



The rocky islet of Martin Garcia, with a lazaretto and quarantine station, 

 guards the approaches to the delta, beyond which a sinuous channel leads through 

 the spacious estuary to the capital of Argentina. 



Towns of the Provinces of Jujuy. 



If the Parana is the great fluvial arter}^ connecting Buenos Ayres and the 

 La Plata estuary with the interior of the continent, the land route in a pre- 

 eminent sense is the historical highway which, under the Spanish administration, 

 connected the two seaboards of La Plata and Peru through the northern Argentine 

 provinces of Jujuy, Salta and Tucuman. 



In the province of Jujuy, conterminous with Bolivia, the first place on the 

 route leading down from the Cortaderas Pass (12,965 feet), is the old Quichua 

 town of Hiimahuaca, near the source of the San Francisco, over 10,000 feet above 

 the sea. After the conquests, its inhabitants, who had offered a stout resistance 

 to the invaders, were removed bodily to La Rioja, and replaced by conquered 

 Indians from Famatina. 



Below Humahuaca the track, which follows the right bank of the river along 

 the foot of the snowy Chani range, crosses several streams before entering the 

 broad well-watered plains (4,000 feet), where stands t7?(/'«^y, capital of the province. 

 This place, built by Velasco in 1592, still preserves its aspect of an old Spanish 

 town, and is surrounded by plantations extending into the lateral valleys watered 

 bv affluents of the Pio Grande, one of the main branches of the Rio Bermejo. 

 Jujuy, which abounds in agricultural produce of the sub-tropical and temperate 

 zones, owes its chief importance to its transit trade with Bolivia carried on by 

 convoys of mules and llamas, and comprising such commodities as maize, fruits, 

 chicha, and especially salt extracted from the dry bed of Lake Casabinda. Its 

 fairs are much frequented, and here many Bolivians have settled, thus repairing 

 the heavy mortality caused by pneumonia, rheumatism, chacJiu fevers, and other 

 maladies due to the cold winter winds, and in summer to the noxious exhalations 

 from the badly-kej)t canals. In the neighbourhood are some petroleum wells, and 

 the thermal saline springs of the qiiehrada de Io>i Reyes are much frequented by 

 rheumatic patients. 



OraN RlVADAVIA. 



Below Jujuy, the San Francisco continues to flow in a steep bed obstructed 

 by rapids, till it reaches a more level incline beyond its great bend near the 

 Ledesma sugar plantations. In this part of the basin the chief place is Oran, 

 standing at a height of 1,000 feet, on a torrent near the point where the San 

 Francisco unites with the Tarija to form the Bermejo. Oran is surrounded by 

 rich sugar and other plantations, cultivated chiefly by the Mataco and Chiriguano 



