The fact is that adequate guard of these enormous and sparsely populated lengths of upcountry frontier would cost more than the results of it would pay for. And why make a fuss while such prime necessities of life as mate and cigarettes are comparatively so cheap? Formosa produces tobacco and sugar; the latter, as in Misiones, being chiefly used for the production of alcohol. A great deal of foreign capital is now invested in timber cutting and exporting companies. Native labour is suitable for this work, but it is desirable in the interests of the companies concerned that the native overseers or gangers be controlled by whites conversant with native ways and also having the gift of forest topography. This last consideration is suggested by the undoubted fact that many a pile of logs has been solemnly measured up and the felling paid for several times over by the white gentleman who has failed—in consequence of a slight rearrangement of the pile, no doubt—to recognise them on successive visits to glades and clearings which all look very much alike except to particularly experienced eyes. Thus does the untutored Indian or half-caste sometimes laugh at civilization. Formosa, although sparsely inhabited, boasts a large proportion of pure whites of various nationalities among its settlers and the timber companies’ employees. There are several Franciscan Mission Stations in the Territory. * * * * * This hasty run over the Argentine Republic has stirred many pleasant memories in the heart of the writer, and set him hoping that, perchance, some one reader may be tempted to take passage to the River Plate; at less cost than, and quite as luxuriously as, if he made his usual sojourn on the Mediterranean Riviera. Would I could take him—an intelligently enthusiastic person he, of course, would be—on a personally conducted tour of my own designing.