The first Custom House built for the port of Buenos Aires was in 1603. The only work carried out in the harbour up to the end of the eighteenth century was the construction of thirty-five metres of brick quay-wall at the site of the "Arsenal" on the Riachuelo. We find that although between the years 1852 and 1858 many plans were presented for building of piers, these were only carried into practice and built by the Government under the technical direction of Engineer E. Taylor; a new Custom House replacing the fortress, a timber pier for loading and unloading goods, and another pier for passenger traffic at the locality of the old mole. In the year 1878 the Riachuelo was first opened for traffic for sea-going ships, and in 1879, 197 vessels with 55,091 tonnage had entered the Riachuelo. As early as 1862 Ed. Madero turned his attention to the question of docks for the port of Buenos Aires, and in 1865 applied for permission to construct them at his own cost, but the application was rejected. Four years later he presented another application, which suffered the same fate. In 1869 the total exports from Buenos Aires were 397,722 tons, the bulk of which were loaded at the Riachuelo, and steamers over 100 metres long frequented the harbour about the time of 1870. It was not until 1882 that Ed. Madero succeeded in obtaining the concession of building the docks for the port of Buenos Aires. The docks were to be constructed on the river side of the city, between the gasworks on the north and the Riachuelo River on the south. The trade of the City of Buenos Aires up to the time of the opening of the South Basin had nearly all been carried on between the shore and the steamers by lighters and small steam tenders. The usual anchorage for the ocean steamers was in the "bar anchorage," a distance of about fourteen miles from the city. The cargoes were transhipped into lighters, which brought them as near to the shore as possible, and from this point they were taken to the Custom House in specially-constructed carts with very large wheels. Passengers were transhipped in the bar anchorage into small tenders, and were brought to a point about 500 metres from the end of the passenger mole. From these tenders, when there was sufficient water, they were taken ashore in small boats, while, if the water was too low to go alongside the mole, they also had to be brought ashore in carts. In many cases, however, passengers were brought on in tenders and landed at the Riachuelo wharves, which were then under construction. The first steamers that arrived in the River Plate were those of the Royal Mail Company, followed by the French Messageries Maritimes, and shortly afterwards by the Lamport & Holt Line.