Thus with everything against it except its irrepressible natural advantages of soil and climate and its lack of mineral wealth, the colony grew in prosperity in spite of man's shortsightedness. There was no temptation here, even if it had been possible, for the Spaniards to exterminate the aborigines by forced work in unhealthy mines. The innumerable herds of cattle and horses that in a very few years peopled the pampa from the few animals brought from Europe and abandoned by the first settlers provided sustenance, even wealth, with comparatively easy labour to the mixed race of Indians and Spaniards, which took kindly to the half-wild pastoral life in harmony with the nomadic traditions of the natives; and thus with much less hardship and cruelty than in other South American regions the Argentines gradually grew into a homogeneous people, whose pastoral and agricultural pursuits brought them to a higher level of general well-being than populations elsewhere in South America. [Illustration: INDIAN CHILD.] But great as is the actual and potential wealth of the Argentine from its favoured soil, it is not that alone that has made its capital the greatest in South America, and has brought to the development of the Republic citizens and resources from all the progressive nations of the world. It is also as the main highway to the remote recesses of the vast continent that the Argentine region has appealed to the imaginations of men. The noble waterways, navigable far into the interior, provide cheap and easy transport for the products of distant provinces possessing infinite possibilities as yet hardly known. The unbroken plains, extending from the Atlantic sea-board to the foot of the Andes eight hundred miles away, offer unrivalled facilities for the construction of railways to convey to the ports food supplies for the Old World from this, the greatest undeveloped grain and pasture region in temperate climes. It is this character of a thoroughfare offering easy access to the coming continent that ensures for Buenos Aires its future position as a world emporium, and to the States of the Argentine Republic readily accessible markets for their abundant and varied natural products. And to add to this advantage the opening of the Transandine tunnel, now at last an accomplished fact, makes the Argentine the natural highway for passengers and fine goods to the cities of Chile and the Pacific Coast, saving the tedious and costly voyage round Cape Horn or through the Straits of Magellan.