460 AMAZONIA AND LA PLATA. 



the local demand from 1,500 to 2,000 tons of corn remain for exportation to 

 Liverpool. The Cluibut wheat has the reputation of being the very best in South 

 America. A railway 46 miles long runs from the banks of the river across the 

 sandy plateau to Port Madryn. Besides tillage, cattle farming is successfully 

 carried on, and the colony alread}^ owns 30,000 horses, sheep, and cattle. 



Consisting originally of a few Welsh starvelings, the colony now comprises 

 over 3,000 souls, including some more recent English, Italian, and Argentine 

 settlers. In the community there is neither a single pauper nor a single police- 

 man, and leisure is already found to cultivate the arts, and to keep alive the study 

 of the old Welsh language. In the census returns mention is made of pianos, 

 harps, and violins, as well as of ploughs and harrows. As in the home country, 

 the colonists have remained faithful to their religious traditions ; each sect has 

 its chapel, and all are zealous observers of the Sabbath. 



Rairson, capital of the territor}', lies on both banks of theCbubut, which is here 

 spanned by a wooden bridge. But the position is inconvenient, since all attempts 

 have been given up to utilise the estuary, and since the colony is connected 

 by rail with the Golfo Nuevo. Trelcw, 9 or 10 miles higher up, forms a 

 depot for the produce of Rawson, and here are the headquarters of the co-opera- 

 tive society which enables the settlers to procure European wares almost at cost 

 price. 



Puerto Desealo — Ushuia. 



Along the coast as far as Magellan Strait follow a few camping grounds, sites 

 of future towns. Such are San Julhoi, Santa Cruz, humble capital of the terri- 

 tory, Gallegos, and Caho de hts Virgenes with its auriferous deposits. Owing to its 

 rigid climate and thankless soil, the colonists have abandoned Puerto Deseado, 

 which, nevertheless, enjoyed considerable advantages in its good roadstead and 

 favourable position under a projecting headland midway between the Chubut 

 estuary and Magellan Strait. In 1586 Cavendish had settled some English 

 families at this point, and in 1669 Great Britain sent out fresh colonists, making 

 the settlement capital of Patagonia, which had been proclaimed a British possession. 



At the close of the eighteenth century, Viedma erected a fort and hoisted the 

 Spanish flag at Puerto Deseado, which the Argentine Republic after wards utilised as 

 a penal settlement. The outlay for every family till recently maintained on this 

 bleak and arid coast by the treasury was estimated at no less than £15,000. In 

 18U0 a solitary French family still lingered on the spot. 



A group of gold hunters have established themselves in Fuegia on the shores 

 of San Sebastian Bay. The settlement stands at a point giving access to a region 

 of pastures, which proves to be considerably more productive than had been com- 

 monly supposed, and which even liffords facilities for tillage, despite the burrow- 

 ings of the tuco-tueo. 



Farther south, on Beagle Channel, is seen the little group of houses at Ushuia, 

 another territorial capital which, according to the last census, contained 76 inhabi- 

 tants, "all officials." This southernmost settlement on the surface of the globe 



