432 AMAZONIA AND LA PLATA. 



independence of the land in 181 G. Since then Tiicuraan has also taken a large 

 share in the civil wars by which the country has been wasted. 



Nevertheless, the city has continued to increase, and is now the fourth place 

 in Argentina for population. The local industries have also been developed by a 

 steady stream of immigration, comprising Europeans of all nationalities. As 

 many as thirty large factories have been established in the outskirts, and sugar 

 culture, introduced from Peru in 1824, has succeeded so well that in 1890 this 

 industry employed 7,000 hands, and yielded 20,000 tons of sugar and 1,100,000 

 gallons of rum from a total area of 20,000 acres. The district, which is 

 studded with farmsteads and hamlets, also yields coffee, hemp, wheat, and other 

 prod vice. 



Tucuman enjoys some reputation as a centre of intellectual life, and one of 

 its colleges takes a high place amongst the scholastic institutions of the Republic. 

 Next to the capital the most flourishing agricultural towns are Monteras and 

 Medinas, both situated on affluents of the Rio Dulce. 



Towns of the Province of Santiago. 



Santiago del Estero, " St. James of the Morass," was the centre of the ancient 

 province of Tucma (Tucuman), which was brought under the rule of the Incas 

 towards the beginning of the fourteenth century. Here the Spanish conquerors 

 established (1553) the first permanent city in the Argentine possessions, and this 

 place was even long known by the name of Tucuman, now transferred to the more 

 flourishing northern city. 



Standing on the right bank of the Rio Dulce on a pluin about 650 feet above 

 sea-level, Santiago, as indicated by the epithet " Estero," is surrounded by swamps 

 and lagoons, former beds of the shifting stream. Half of the houses were swept 

 away by an inundation, in 1633, when some of the inhabitants migrated to 

 Tucuman, others to Cordoba. The deserted city, often exposed to the attacks of 

 the Indians, remained under the government of the Jesuits, who transformed the 

 country to another Paraguay, with a similar theocratic administration and similar 

 social usages. In all respects the populations of both regions resemble each 

 other; they display the same love of cleanliness, and the same taste for music 

 and the harp, which has always been the national instrument of the Guarani 

 people. The ordinary diet, almost exclusively vegetable, is the same, as is also 

 the universal use of maté as a stimulating beverage. 



After the proclamation of Argentine independence, Ibarra, dictator and 

 absolute master for thirty years, made every effort to maintain the outlying 

 territories, which lay beyond the sphere of political agitation. But although 

 reduced to a mere collection of adobe houses, Santiago has recovered a little of its 

 former activity since the completion of the line connecting it with the Cordoba- 

 Tucuman railway. It exports lucerne, cheese, and other produce, and also 

 engages in the sugar industrv, although with less success than Tucuman. 



