The temporary emigration of the Santiagueños continued throughout the nineteenth century. It was maintained even during the disturbances under the government of Rosas, which almost entirely put an end to commercial relations between Buenos Aires and the northern provinces. When Galvez passed through the villages on the Rio Dulce he noticed that there were few men in them. They had scattered over the roads or were, as he says, andariegos. Only the women remained. The province of Buenos Aires received the Santiagueños in crowds, offering their services. Chivilcoy and the whole region of the chacras of maize and wheat received their caravans for the harvest, and some were kept for the sowing. Even the ranchers took advantage of this reinforcement, and hired the men for marking. In the autumn they went back with their tropillas, much dreaded by the breeders whose land they crossed, stealing any horses that were not well guarded.

The province of Santa Fé, especially in the agricultural departments of the north-west, is now the chief theatre in the Pampean region for the immigration of the Santiagueños. It does not always come by rail, but has to some extent preserved its primitive and picturesque features. The immigrants arrive in troops on mules and horses, and scatter in November over the colonies.

The population of Argentina has also felt the attraction of the urban centres. The growth of the towns is due to both foreign and national immigration. The development of urban life, which is one of the characteristic features of modern Argentina, is a recent phenomenon. There was no indication of its coming in the eighteenth century. D'Azara was, on the contrary, struck by the absence of communal life (pueblos unidos). The scattering of the population was a result of the predominance of breeding. "If these people found profit in agriculture, one would see them gather together in villages, instead of the whole population being dispersed in ranches."[141] It is this scattering of the population rather than an absolute numerical inferiority—the solitude, "the desert, the universal horizon that forced itself into the very entrails of the land"[142]—that moulded the fiery soul of the gaucho.

A HERD OF CREOLE CATTLE.

Photograph by Widmayer.

[Click to view larger image.]

A HERD OF DURHAM CATTLE.