would not only benefit themselves but their employers by introducing into these new countries the results of their practical experience elsewhere. It is to foreigners, also, that the natives must look to instruct them in the use of steam-vessels, upon which, after all, the future advancement of these remote countries in wealth and civilization will so mainly depend.

I will only add to the observations which I have already made upon this subject, my conviction that if the governments of Buenos Ayres, Santa Fé, and Corrientes would but unite in a sincere determination to give a fair trial to the experiment, men would be found at Buenos Ayres who would desire no better than to be employed on such a service :as to any opposition Dr. Francia might offer to it, it is not worth a moment's consideration.* Give an English midshipman, of sufficient experience, an armed steamer and a picked crew, either of his own countrymen or North Americans, to whom he might add some of the excellent sailors of Paraguay, and I am quite sure he would carry a cargo from Buenos Ayres up the Vermejo in perfect safety to Oran, despite of Dr. Francia or any such bugbear. This, however, is an object which must have the cordial support and co-operation of the ruling powers. If they shut their eyes to the importance of its success,

* A small iron steamer, which might be had for 25,000l. or 30,000l., would be quite sufficient to begin with.

STEAM NAVIGATION.

it would be labour thrown away for any

to volunteer the attempt.

293

individual

The government of Buenos Ayres, as the authorities charged with the general interests of the Republic, from their habitual intercourse with the people of other countries, ought to be fully able to appreciate the immense benefits which steam-navigation has produced elsewhere, and how greatly it has tended to promote the prosperity and civilization of other nations. It is in their power to extend those blessings to their own countrymen in the heart of the South American continent, and to produce a really United Confederation of the Provinces, instead of that which is now little more than nominal, from the vast distances which intervene, and operate as a bar to almost any intercourse between them.

With the establishment of steam-navigation, distance will cease to be distance, and the upper provinces will find a cheap and ready vent for an abundance of productions which are now not worth the heavy expenses of sending down by land-carriage to Buenos Ayres.

It is a grave question, deserving the most serious attention of those to whom the government of these countries is at present intrusted, and in the early solution of which, perhaps, their future political destinies are involved to an extent far beyond the comprehension of any casual observer.

CHAPTER XIV.

PROVINCES OF CUYO.

The towns of Cuyo formerly attached to Cordova. Value of the old municipal institutions. SAN LUIS, wretched state of the population. The miserable weakness of the Government, exposes the whole southern frontier of the Republic to the Indians. Aconcagua seen from the town. Mines of Carolina. Account of a journey over the Pampas in a carriage. MENDOZA, extent, rivers, artificial irrigation, productions. Mines not worth working by English companies. Ancient Peruvian road. City of Mendoza, and salubrity of the Climate. SAN JUAN. The productions similar to those of Mendoza, Wine, Brandy, and Corn. Quantity of Corn produced yearly. Mines of Jachal. Character of the people. Passes across the Andes. Dr. Gillies' account of an excursion by those of the Planchon and Las Damas. Singular animal found in the provinces of Cuyo named the Chlamyphorus, described by Mr. Yarrell.

THE towns of San Luis, San Juan, and Mendoza, with their several jurisdictions, each of which is now considered a separate province, in the time of the Viceroys were subject to the Intendency of Cordova. In 1813, by a decree of the National Congress, they were separated from that government, and formed into a distinct province, under the denomination of the Province of Cuyo,* of

* The word Cuyo, according to Angelis, in the Araucanian language signifies arena, or sand, which is the general character of the soil.

VALUE OF THE CABILDOS.

295

which Mendoza was made the capital; but in this, as in the other divisions of the republic enacted about the same time, the bonds were too loosely knit to resist the shocks of party struggles and domestic convulsions; and this arrangement, though wisely planned, fell with the dissolution of the Congress at Buenos Ayres which created it.

But for the cabildos and municipal institutions which still existed in most of the principal towns of the interior when the metropolitan government was dissolved, in 1820, I believe every semblance of a legitimate authority would have ceased. They retained to a certain extent powers not only for the preservation of the public peace, but for the administration of justice; and although perhaps, under the circumstances, they afforded facilities for the establishment of the federal system in opposition to a more centralised form of government, there is no doubt they saved the insulated towns in the interior from worse consequences. Those institutions were by far the best part of the colonial system planted by the mother country, and they were framed upon principles of liberality and independence which formed a very singular exception to her general colonial policy. I doubt whether those which in most cases have been substituted for them have been so wisely cast, or are so suitable to the state of society in those countries. The people at large were habituated and attached to them, and had they been retained, with some reforms adapting

them to the new order of things, they might have been made the very best foundations for the new republican institutions of the country. But the truth was, they were essentially too democratic for the military power which arose out of the change; they succumbed to that, and the people, having no real voice in their new governments, made no struggle to preserve them.