PROVINCE OF ENTRE RIOS.
The Entre Rios territory, bounded on three sides by the Paranã, and on the east by the river Uruguay, like Santa Fé, formed part of the intendency of Buenos Ayres till the year 1814, when the general government divided it into two distinct provinces, called the provinces of Entre Rios and Corrientes:—the separating line between them, for the present agreed upon, is that formed by the little river Guayquiraro, which falls into the Paranã in about latitude 30° 30´, and the Mocoreta, which runs in the opposite direction into the Uruguay.
The Villa del Paranã, or Bajada, opposite to Santa Fé, is, nominally, the capital town of Entre Rios;—which province is subdivided by the river Gualeguay into two departments, that of the Paranã and that of the Uruguay.
According to the Provisional Reglamento or Constitution drawn up in 1821, in imitation of that of Buenos Ayres, the governor should be chosen every two years by a provincial junta, composed of deputies from the several towns or villages, the principal of which, after the capital, are the Villa de la Concepcion on the Uruguay; and Nogoya, Gualeguay, and Gualeguaychú, on the rivers of the same name.
The population may be about 30,000 souls,—very much scattered,—and almost entirely occupied in the estancias or cattle-farms, in which the wealth of the province chiefly consists. Many of them belong to capitalists in Buenos Ayres:—they have the advantages of a never-failing supply of water, and of being safe from any inroads of the Indians,—the two great desiderata for such establishments in that part of the world,—whilst their proximity to Buenos Ayres ensures a ready sale for the produce.
These advantages made it a great cattle-country in the time of the Spaniards, but it was devastated and depopulated in the first years of the struggle for independence by the notorious Artigas and his followers, and became the scene of much bloodshed and confusion:—from that it had hardly begun to recover when the war, breaking out between the Republic and Brazil for the Banda Oriental, again made it the theatre, as a frontier province, of military operations, and unsettled the habits of the population. The years which have elapsed since the conclusion of that war have sufficed once more to cover the province with cattle, and there are gauchos enough to take care of them.