Buenos Ayres and the Provinces of the Rio de La Plata / Their Present State, Trade, and Debt

by Sir Woodbine Parish

A further study of that language might lead the scientific inquirer to many an important discovery. The disposition of the Peruvians for observation is well known, and their nomenclature of places is generally expressive more or less either of the nature of the soil, or some peculiarity attached to it: thus a person well versed in Quichua is beforehand aware of what he is to see. Peutocsi, for instance, difficult to be properly pronounced by an European, and corrupted into Potosi, signifies, "It is said to have burst forth:" such must have been their tradition, which the very appearance of this singular cone, standing alone and distinct from the system of mountains which surrounds it, and the hot springs in its vicinity, would seem to corroborate.

It is in the province of Santiago that the Quichua is first met with. The Jesuits reduced it to a written language, and published a grammar and dictionary of it in Peru.

The city of Santiago is a miserable ill-built place, containing not more than 4000 souls. It is situated in lat. 27° 47´, according to Azara, upon the banks of a considerable river which rises in the territory of Tucuman, and running south through this province is finally lost, under the name of the Rio Dulce, in the great lakes called the Porongos, to the west of Santa Fé. The whole population of the province it estimated to be about 50,000; the greater part of which is much scattered in small villages built along the courses of this river and of the Salado, which runs parallel to it, and separates the province on that side from the gran-chaco, or desert, the low lands along their banks being better suited for the pasturage of cattle and for cultivation than the other parts of the province. The soil there is well adapted to the growth of wheat, which is said to yield eighty for one.

In most parts of the province the cactus may be seen growing to an unusual size, and the cochineal gathered from it used to form one of the most valuable productions of this part of the country: from 8000 to 10,000 lbs. of it were annually sent to Chile and Peru. Large quantities of wild beeswax and honey were also collected in the woods and sent to the other provinces, in which they were always in demand; but the civil dissensions which have of late years been so frequent in these provinces have checked the industry of the people, who have almost entirely abandoned their old pursuits, and given up their yearly gatherings of these once valued productions. This is the more to be regretted as they are said to be naturally an enterprising and intelligent race, less given to habitual indolence than some of the other inhabitants of these latitudes. The women manufacture ponchos and coarse saddle-cloths, or blankets, which are sold in great numbers to the people of Tucuman and Salta.

To the eastward of the river Salado lies the vast region commonly called the Gran-chaco, or desert, which extends to the Paranã, and reaches north as far as the province of Chiquitos, solely inhabited by Indians of various tribes, who, safe in their own forests and jungles, have there found a refuge from Spanish domination and persecution. It is through this territory that the rivers Pilcomayo and Vermejo wind their tortuous courses to the Paranã from the most remote parts of the interior of the Upper Provinces.

Some way beyond the Salado, about seventy leagues east from Santiago (in lat 27° 28´), was found that very remarkable specimen of native iron which I sent to this country some years ago, and which is now deposited in the British Museum. Its existence was first made known by some of the people of Santiago, who had passed through that part of the country in their journeys to the forests beyond to collect honey; and their reports, which were transmitted to Buenos Ayres, induced the Viceroy, in 1788, to send Don Reuben de Celis, an officer in the King's service, to examine it. His report upon it was published in the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London for 1788, and excited much speculation at the time.

As in those times the working of iron was forbidden in South America, after sundry specimens of it were forwarded to Lima, to Buenos Ayres, and to Spain, the remainder lay neglected for many years in its original site.

In the beginning of the struggle for independence, however, when the Spanish ships of war blockaded Buenos Ayres, iron, amongst other necessaries, becoming extremely scarce, the people recollected De Celis's account, with the reports of the Indians, that in the same parts there were extensive veins of the same mineral; and at a great expense the mass in question was sent for and brought to Buenos Ayres. By the time it got there the blockade was over; and as it was evidently much easier to procure iron from Europe than by a cart-carriage of 1000 miles from the uninhabited wilds of the Chaco, no further trouble was taken to determine whether or not the Indian reports of its being procurable in larger quantities were true or not. By way of experiment a pair of pistols were manufactured from it, which were sent as a present to the President of the United States, and what remained was placed at my disposal by the Minister of Buenos Ayres on the occasion of my signing the treaty with him in 1825, which recognised on the part of Great Britain the political independence of his country. I sent it to Sir Humphrey Davy to be placed in the British Museum, hoping that he would himself have analysed it, and given his opinion respecting its supposed meteoric origin. The analysis I believe was never made, owing to his death, which occurred very shortly after the arrival of the iron in this country.

It seems, however, to have been assumed here that this iron, as a matter of course, is meteoric, because it contains those admixtures of nickel and cobalt which accompany other known meteoric productions. It appears to me that the hypothesis is not very satisfactorily or conclusively made out.

The mass I sent home weighs about 1400 pounds, and, making allowance for what may have been taken from it at Buenos Ayres, may probably when it arrived there have been not much less than a ton weight. Now De Celis estimates the mass he examined to have been about fifteen tons weight, and of much larger dimensions: either this therefore is only a fragment of what he particularly described, or it is another which has been found in the same part of the country, and if so, is corroborative of the Indian accounts of there being more in the vicinity. This was the opinion of Dr. Redhead, who, in writing to me on the subject, says, "The native iron found in Santiago is not a single mass, as has been said; there are several, and the most recent accounts describe them as huge trunks with deep roots (I use the expression of the natives), supposed to communicate with each other."[60]