The possession of a temperate climate has made the Argentine and Chile the two South American nations of most promise for the future, owing to the fact that both countries have attracted and assimilated a great admixture of the robust peoples of Europe. The immigrants have been to a large extent drawn from the countries where life is hard and the fare frugal; from North Italy, from Galicia and Russia; whilst in stern Patagonia the Scotsman and the Welshman find an environment after their own hearts. In the second generation the immigrants of all nations usually become sturdy Argentines, and this easy assimilation of new ethnological elements is one of the most striking signs of the energy of the nation as a whole, and the most promising fact as regards the future political stability of the country. That a composite race will result from this admixture, possessing much of the patient laboriousness of the Ligurian and the practical hardheadedness of the Teuton, to temper the keen vehemence of the Ibero-American, may be confidently hoped: and if such be the case the advantages that nature has showered upon the Argentine will be complete, and a splendid future for the country secure. MARTIN HUME. FOOTNOTES: [1] Hakluyt. [2] It need hardly be mentioned that Tucuman, which had been founded by the Spaniards from the Peru side some twenty years before, is not on the river at all, but nearly five hundred miles distant across the still almost unknown Gran Chaco. Tucuman is now reached by railway from the south by way of Cordoba. ARGENTINA CHAPTER I THE COUNTRY--ITS FOUR DIVISIONS--THE RIVERS--THE CLIMATE