The Parana River stretches away north into Corrientes. There are places with tremendous areas of well-watered pastures; but the farther north one journeys the more the country becomes swampy and covered with heavy forest. The vegetation is tropical, and parrots with gay plumage disturb the silence of the woods with their shrieks.
It is here that the forest Indians are to be found, particularly the Tobas and the Matacos. Formerly the tribes kept to their own territory; but with the coming of the white man, and particularly the importation of Russians, Poles, and Scandinavians to work in the lumber camps, this custom has gradually been broken down. The Indians resent the presence of the intruders, and there is many a black story of massacre. The forest Indians cannot be induced to work in the hewing of timber, but missionaries are doing a great deal in persuading them to take to farming and raising crops of maize or bananas.
The Indians near the towns on the Parana River are taking to wearing European clothes. In the time of the sugar harvest in the west they will work for a month or so, but on their tramp back of several hundred miles they frequently fall out with one another, and there is fierce fighting and murdering of which the outer world never hears. Far in the forests, up to the present but little penetrated, the Indians are found in their original state, naked save for a loin cloth, producing fire by the rubbing of sticks, still utilising bows and arrows in warfare, and following the practice when an enemy has been slain of cutting off his head and using the skull as a drinking bowl.
| THE LONGEST GIRDER BRIDGE IN THE REPUBLIC, NEAR SANTA FÉ. |
All this may seem to suggest that Corrientes is a somewhat forbidding province, especially as much of its territory is marshy. For instance, Lake Ibera and its marshes covers an area of something like 15,000 square miles. The vegetation is dense, the climate is bad, and there is little to attract man unless he be a sportsman. But so vast is the province that there are wide areas which are very productive, because the province is well provided with rivers and streams.
There are in the province about 5,000,000 head of cattle, over 3,000,000 sheep, and about 600,000 horses. Besides cattle, there are the timber trade and the sugar industry, also tobacco growing, to be counted amongst its sources of revenue.
It was only in 1908 that the province of Entre Rios entered the Republic. As will be gathered from its name, the province lies "between rivers," the Parana and Uruguay, both of which are navigable for many hundreds of miles. There are many smaller rivers which, although not much good for traffic, are most useful in watering the country. Entre Rios has as fertile a soil as will be found in any part of the Republic. The country is more picturesque than can be said of Argentina as a whole, and with its many farms it is often reminiscent of England. In the north there are extensive forests; indeed, one-fifth of the province is covered with valuable timber. Agricultural products and live stock are, as elsewhere, the chief source of prosperity.