As a commercial centre Rosario is of great importance. Tapping the greater portion of the rich provinces of Cordoba and Santa Fé, it receives enormous quantities of wheat and other cereals as well as live stock. It is accessible to ocean-going steamers, and hundreds of vessels leave it each year loaded with food for the millions of Europe. The Paraná River at this point is nearly a mile wide, and is an imposing, if not beautiful, stream of water. The river has cut its channel down into the soil to such a depth that the bluffs upon which Rosario is built stand about sixty feet high. Warehouses line these bluffs, and the wheat is transferred to the waiting vessels below by gravity. Each warehouse has a long chute running down to the river bank through which the grain is poured. It has been bagged on the _estancias_ and is shipped in the same bags to Europe. As soon as a bag touches the chute it speeds down the inclined plane into the waiting vessel. The bags follow one another in quick succession. At harvest time the wheat often becomes congested at this port. Large port works have been constructed so that the docks have accommodation for a goodly number of boats, although not comparing at all with Buenos Aires in extent. From here the river lines carry passengers up and down the Paraná for hundreds of miles, and then they branch off to the Paraguay and Alta Paraná. Quite a network of railway lines also converge at Rosario, and altogether it is a hustling and busy place. The large and rich province of Santa Fé is second in importance only to that of Buenos Aires. It is long and narrow, being several hundred miles in length from its northern to its southern boundary, and is almost as large as England. The capital of the province is the city of Santa Fé. For a long time this little city was an unimportant place, even though it was the provincial capital. To-day it is, after almost three hundred and fifty years of existence, a place of about twenty-five thousand inhabitants. It is proposed to deepen the channel so that ocean-going steamers can reach this port, but this project will not be done before “to-morrow.” The northern part of this province partakes of the character of the Chaco and is undeveloped. At least three-fourths of the state, however, is rich land, well suited for the cultivation of cereals, which form the principal product, and have contributed most to the wealth. There is usually sufficient rain in this province, but its nearness to the Chaco makes it subject to a visitation which is almost equal in its destructive qualities to that of the drouth.