natives; and thus with much less hardship and cruelty than in other South American regions the Argentines gradually grew into a homogeneous people, whose pastoral and agricultural pursuits brought them to a higher level of general well-being than populations elsewhere in South America.

INDIAN CHILD.

But great as is the actual and potential wealth of the Argentine from its favoured soil, it is not that alone that has made its capital the greatest in South America, and has brought to the development of the Republic citizens and resources from all the progressive nations of the world. It is also as the main highway to the remote recesses of the vast continent that the Argentine region has appealed to the imaginations of men. The noble waterways, navigable far into the interior, provide cheap and easy transport for the products of distant provinces possessing infinite possibilities as yet hardly known. The unbroken plains, extending from the Atlantic sea-board to the foot of the Andes eight hundred miles away, offer unrivalled facilities for the construction of railways to convey to the ports food supplies for the Old World from this, the greatest undeveloped grain and pasture region in temperate climes. It is this character of a thoroughfare offering easy access to the coming continent that ensures for Buenos Aires its future position as a world emporium, and to the States of the Argentine Republic readily accessible markets for their abundant and varied natural products. And to add to this advantage the opening of the Transandine tunnel, now at last an accomplished fact, makes the Argentine the natural highway for passengers and fine goods to the cities of Chile and the Pacific Coast, saving the tedious and costly voyage round Cape Horn or through the Straits of Magellan.

The greatest admirers of the old Spanish colonial system will hardly deny that the prodigious development effected since the declaration of Argentine independence, of the resources of the country, thanks largely to the influx of foreign immigrants and capital, would have been impossible under the Spanish domination. That a new people, unaccustomed to, and perhaps as yet unprepared for, self-government and political emancipation should have had to work out its own problems during a period of turbulence was inevitable. It is no reproach to the Argentine people that this natural process, necessary to fit them for a stable political existence, has in the past caused violence and lawlessness. The constant introduction of men of other races into the Argentine is giving to the population new features and qualities which will render the racial stock of the future one of the most interesting ethnological problems in the world; and this abundant admixture of foreign blood, readily assimilated as it is by the native stock, certainly makes for increasing stability.

The same may be said of the large amount of foreign capital invested in Argentine enterprises. Argentine statesmen, taught by experience as they have been, and keenly awake to the need for foreign aid in developing their country, are not in the least likely in future to frighten away capital by dishonest finance or revolutionary methods. Responsibility has already brought sobriety into Argentine politics, and although the official procedure and Governmental ethics of the Spanish races vary from those usually prevalent in Anglo-Saxon countries, they are in most cases better suited to the character of the people than those that commend themselves to us. When we for our own purposes go to a foreign country, it is unreasonable to expect, as many Englishmen do, that we can carry with us and impose upon our hosts our own traditions and standards.

No country known to me impresses upon a visitor from Europe so forcibly as the Argentine the unlimited possibilities of its soil. Travelling hour after hour by a railway straight as a line over gently undulating or perfectly flat plains, stretching on all sides as far as the eye can reach, the observer is struck by the regular ripple of the rich grass, like the waves of the sea, as the breeze blows over it. Here and there little clumps of eucalyptus slightly break the monotony of the landscape, and a gleam of a bright green alfalfa field occasionally relieves the eye. Far away at rare intervals gleaming white walls and turrets surrounded by eucalyptus groves mark the position of an estancia, and innumerable herds of cattle, sheep, and almost wild troops of horses everywhere testify to the richness of the pasture.

A SHEEP RUN.

From Buenos Aires to Mendoza, almost at the foot of the Andes, some six hundred miles away, the scene hardly changes. Far to the south the pampa is poorer and more sparse, but still splendid pasture for certain sorts of cattle, whilst in Entre Rios, the great tract between the rivers Paraná and Uruguay, the country is wilder and more broken, especially towards the north. Scattered amongst the vast flocks of sheep upon the open veldt are many ostriches, now a profitable investment, whilst great numbers of running partridges seek cover in the pampa grass from the dreaded hawks that hover above them. The native grass is flesh-forming but not fattening, and, to an English grazier, looks poor food enough for the millions of head of cattle that thrive upon it. It does not, as does the best English pasture, entirely cover the surface, but grows in distinct tufts. The native grass, however, is now rapidly being supplanted in the rich plains of Central Argentina by new forms of pasture, mostly English, infinitely richer, perennial in its luxuriance, and forming upon this favoured soil the best cattle-grazing in the world.