The old ruined town lies about a mile from the new town and is a mass of ruins, scarcely a single house remaining intact. There is something sadly depressing about these heaps of fallen stones, broken arches and sightless windows—relics of the old Spanish-Moorish architecture. The old city covered about two hundred acres and contained seven churches and three convents. The first shocks levelled almost every building to the ground. They are a place of frequent pilgrimage and one may still find burning candles in nooks and corners, placed there by devout relatives of those who were hurled unshriven into the beyond. Surely purgatory cannot long retain the souls of those who were overtaken by death while at worship, even though they were unprepared to leave this world. The centre of the town is the broad Avenue de San Martin, the alameda, with its double row of trees and the stream of water that runs on either side of the roadway. Were it not for this shade and the running water, the streets of Mendoza would be pretty hot in the middle of the day. Down this wide, cobblestoned street the Mendozians have their _corso_, or carriage drive, and one will see victorias with bells on the tongue wedged in with two-wheeled country carts, and all other kinds of vehicles. Happy farmers and the distinguished citizens of Mendoza mingle together on this occasion. There is a certain kind of provincial good humour about this little city so near the lonely Andes. Small boys armed with buckets on long poles dip the water from the canals and fling it across the thoroughfare. On Monday morning, or following a _fiesta_, this battle with the dust is conducted by a lot of shame-faced men who are not volunteers or employees of the city, but are working out a fine for the previous day’s debauch. The city also possesses a very pretty park besides a number of plazas. There is considerable street life in the city, and the cafés afford evidence of this, for they are wont to spread their tables far out under the trees in this genial climate. Mendoza is not a temperance resort, for it is a great wine centre. This is the country of the grape, and it is this fruit that has brought wealth to Mendoza. All about the city are vineyards and meadows, and the outlines of the farms are marked by rows upon rows of graceful poplars. Millions of those poplars have beautified this country, which at one time was a barren waste, and would still be so were it not that man has harnessed the streams formed from the melting snows which rush down from the snow-clad peaks. Irrigation was first established by the Spaniards several hundred years ago, but it has been extended and systematized by the grape growers in recent years. Dams have been built across the rivers and the waters forced through artificial channels, until now there are more than twelve hundred miles of these channels, which water a district of approximately one thousand square miles.