The form of government in this province, as in all the rest, is based upon the example of that of Buenos Ayres; consisting of a popular assembly, which has the power of electing the Governor. But though democratic in theory, it is far otherwise in practice: the lower orders have not the smallest notion of the real meaning of a representative form of government, and bow with submission to the dictates of a patriarchal coterie of influential families, which, alternately electing and elected, arrange the government amongst themselves very much as suits their own convenience and interests. If any appeal to the people is ever made, it is generally from the necessity of supporting by a demonstration of brute force the pretensions of some particular candidate for power. Such are these governments in the infancy of society. One may serve as a sample of the rest, although local circumstances may have given rise to slight shades of difference in their appearance. Salta, as a frontier province, during the struggle for independence, was much exposed to the vicissitudes of the war; but this very circumstance roused the energies of the people, and excited in them a spirit of improvement which has placed them in advance of most of the Upper Provinces. The establishment of a printing-press, from which occasionally a newspaper is produced, and of schools, in which reading, writing, and the first rules of arithmetic are taught, are great steps compared with the state of things under the old regime. The clergy, too, either from conviction, or the force of circumstances, are daily becoming more tolerant, and opinions which in old times it would have been heresy to think of, are now as freely discussed as at Buenos Ayres, where religious toleration has become the law of the land. From Buenos Ayres, Salta is distant 414 leagues, by the post road, and so far the journey may be gone the whole way in a four-wheel carriage; but beyond Salta this is no longer possible, and the traveller must mount his mule to traverse the regions of the Cordillera, which there may be said to begin in earnest, and the rugged and precipitous passes through which are quite impracticable by any other mode of conveyance.