and weighty wagons by routes upon which the hand of man has only been required to cut away a few trees and thickets, and which extend from Salta to Buenos Ayres, and thence to Mendoza, a distance of more than seven hundred leagues, constitutes one of the most noteworthy features of the internal conformation of the Republic. The exertions of the individual, aided by what rude nature has done already, suffice to provide ways and means of communication; if art shall offer its assistance, if the forces of society shall attempt to supply the strength lacking in the individual, the colossal dimensions of the work will repel the most enterprising, and insufficiency of labor will be an obstacle. Thus in the matter of roads, untamed nature will long have control, and the action of civilization will continue weak and inoperative.
Moreover, these outstretched plains impart to the life of the interior a certain Asiatic coloring, which we may even call very decided. I have often mechanically saluted the moon, as it rose calmly and brightly, with these words of Volney in his description of the Ruins: "La pleine lune à l'Orient s'élévait sur un fond bleuâtre aux plaines rives de l'Euphrate." There is something in the wilds of the Argentine territory which brings to mind the wilds of Asia; the imagination discovers a likeness between the pampa and the plains lying between the Euphrates and the Tigris; some affinity between the lonely line of wagons which crosses our wastes, arriving at Buenos Ayres after a journey lasting for months, and the caravan of camels which takes its way toward Bagdad or Smyrna. The wagons which make such journeys among us, consti-
