As far as its physical aspect is concerned, the Province of Buenos Aires has been accused with considerable justice of being generally uninteresting. Certainly its surface is one huge flat plain, until one gets south to the ranges of the Sierra de la Ventana and the Tandíl hills. Past them, nothing but monotonous plain again till its southernmost boundary, the Rio Colorado, is reached.
Its only romantic scenery, though that is delightful indeed, is on its north-eastern frontier, along the small River Tigre and the majestic Paraná; the banks and innumerable islands of which are clad with useful osiers, flowering reeds, peach trees and a large riot of other beautiful and luxuriant vegetation. Many a spring day can be passed in idyllic enjoyment among the islands of the Tigre.
At Tandíl, on the south-eastern side of the Province, there are quarries of fine marble and building stone, and until a year or so ago there was a famous rocking-stone perched on another rock, the surface of which is inclined at an angle of something like 45 degrees. To all appearances a mere gust of wind would have toppled the upper stone down into a hollow beneath; but the tale goes that Señor Benito Villanueva, a wealthy and sportsmanlike Argentine, once tied a rope round the rocking-stone and attached the other end to a double span of oxen on the plain below. The oxen pulled; but without any other effect on the rocking-stone than temporarily to cant it just as many centimetres as it could be moved by a good push from a man’s hand. Now, alas for Tandíl, someone has succeeded in dislodging the rocking-stone from its uncanny-looking eminence, so that it has, literally, fallen from its high celebrity.
Buenos Aires is, naturally, the Province of palatial estancia houses surrounded by model farms. The Queen Province. The most densely populated and cultivated and the one with the largest revenues.
SANTA FÉ
This Province ranks next to that of Buenos Aires in respect of area and population, while its output of both maize and linseed is slightly greater than that of the Queen Province; in regard to wheat it stands third among the Argentine Provinces, Córdoba coming immediately after Buenos Aires, and in respect of oats it again comes second. In point of live stock it comes only fifth, after Buenos Aires, Entre Rios, Corrientes and Córdoba.
It is bounded on the North by the Territory of the Chaco, on the West by the Provinces of Santiago del Estero and Córdoba, on the South by the Province of Buenos Aires and on the East by the River Paraná.
The northern part of Santa Fé is covered with vast forests, continuations of those of the Provinces of Santiago del Estero and the Territory of the Chaco. These forests are rich in Quebracho wood, and from them also come large supplies of firewood and charcoal.
The other parts of Santa Fé are devoted to stock and agriculture.
The streams of this Province, although more numerous than those of Buenos Aires, have (with the exception of the great River Paraná) the same tendency to dry up as have those of the Queen Province, and, therefore, water-drawing windmills are in proportionate evidence.