After three years on an estancia in the vast monotonous, treeless, but
most fertile plains of the Central Argentine, under scorching sun,
driving rains, and biting wind, one feels that one would like to see a
river sometimes, animal life and more congenial surroundings; and so I
determined to visit the Northern Chaco, that enormous tract of land
which lies North of Santa Fe and stretches right away for many hundreds
of miles to North, East, and West.
Leaving Rosario by the night express, one crosses the great, slightly
undulating plains, probably among the richest in the world for the
growth of wheat, linseed, and maize, reaching Santa Fe early the
following morning. This town, the capital and Government centre of the
province, is rather an uninteresting place; chiefly noticeable in it are
the great number of fine churches and the magnificent sawmills owned by
a large French company. Santa Fe is supposed to be one of the most
religious centres in the Republic. More than once it has almost been
washed away in an eddy of the giant Parana in flood, the water rising
four feet in the houses on the highest level in the town.
After spending a day of sight-seeing in Santa Fe, we embarked at
nightfall for Vera, the headquarters of the Santa Fe Land Company's wood
department, arriving there in the early morning.
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