Florida, west of Minas and north of Canelones, abounds in cattle and is developing agriculture.
Durazno, north, in the centre of the Republic, is also chiefly devoted to cattle raising.
Flores, west of Durazno, is not well populated and is chiefly pastoral.
Ports
Ocean Ports. The only ocean port of importance in Uruguay is Montevideo and this indeed is on the Plata River. It ranks, however, among the best in South America in depth, capacity, and ease of access, admitting ships of 32-foot draft at low tide. A free port for goods in transit, where they may remain a year in the Custom House without tax, it has excellent docks and harbor works, including ample warehouses and facilities for handling all classes of merchandise, 1400 tons unloaded in ten hours. A port railway serves to connect sea and land traffic, transferring passengers as well as freight directly from steamers to railway cars. The port works constructed by the French, concluded for the most part before the War, cost in the neighborhood of $40,000,000. In the vicinity a Hotel for Immigrants accommodates 1000.
Ships of many lines call in passing, passenger steamers for Buenos Aires and many which do not go up the river, either because of too heavy draft, or to save time when on the way to the West Coast or to other ports. For some this is the ultimate destination. Nightly trips between the two great cities are made by steamers of the Mihanovich Line, which rival all but the finest plying between New York and Boston. Smaller steamers sail from here or pause on their way up the Uruguay, or the Paraná and the Paraguay, the latter perhaps going through to Corumbá, 1800 miles, those for the Uruguay at most 300 miles to Salto or Concordia.
River Ports. Montevideo would strictly come under this head. Others of importance are Colonia on the Plata and Paysandú on the Uruguay, to which ocean steamers of 14-foot draft may ascend; to Salto beyond, steamers of 8-foot draft. Above the rapids at Salto on the Uruguay and on a few of its branches smaller steamboats and other craft are used. The Rio Negro is navigable 50 miles to the town of Mercedes. The entire fluvial navigation is 700 miles. The Uruguay Navigation Company with a capital of $10,000,000 has recently been organized for traffic on the Plata, Paraná, Uruguay, and Paraguay Rivers.
CHAPTER XLIV
URUGUAY: TRANSPORTATION, RESOURCES AND INDUSTRIES
Railways
Even more than in Argentina the railways have been developed by British capital. The first concession in 1865 was for a road from Montevideo to the Rio Negro. Construction has been more expensive than on the plains of the neighboring Republic, on account of rolling country and the many bridges required, over 300. There is a single tunnel, in the Department Rocha. Happily all of the railways are of the same gauge, the standard, 4 feet 8¹⁄₂ inches. The length of those in operation is 1680 miles, the greatest in proportion to area of any country in South America.