In tropical climates I am satisfied that Europeans will never be able to compete in amount of daily labour with the natives: on the contrary, wherever the trial has been made, the Indian labourer has been found capable of enduring an infinitely greater degree of bodily exertion than the most robust European. It is hardly credible, indeed, what these people will go through. In the mines especially, where the amount of their daily work, and the loads they are capable of sustaining, have excited the astonishment of every one who has paid the slightest attention to the subject. The stoutest of the Cornish miners who accompanied Captain Head in his visit to the mine of San Pedro Nolasco, was scarcely able to walk with a load of ore which one of the natives had with apparent ease brought out of the mine upon his shoulders, whilst two others of the party who attempted to lift it were altogether unable to do so, and exclaimed that it would break their backs. In these observations I allude of course to the labouring class,--I speak of hands not heads, for I fully agree in the necessity of introducing improvements in the cultivation of the native products,--which improvements will assuredly be best introduced by foreigners qualified by experience in other countries to superintend and direct those processes, both of cultivation and after preparation, which may be requisite to ensure their immediate sale in the foreign markets for which they are destined. Such persons, perhaps, would be best sought for in the East or West Indies or Brazil; and, no doubt, they would not only benefit themselves but their employers by introducing into these new countries the results of their practical experience elsewhere. It is to foreigners, also, that the natives must look to instruct them in the use of steam-vessels, upon which, after all, the future advancement of these remote countries in wealth and civilisation will so mainly depend. I will only add to the observations which I have already made upon this subject, my conviction that if the governments of Buenos Ayres, Santa Fé, and Corrientes would but unite in a sincere determination to give a fair trial to the experiment, men would be found at Buenos Ayres who would desire no better than to be employed on such a service:--as to any opposition Dr. Francia might offer to it, it is not worth a moment's consideration.[67] Give an English midshipman, of sufficient experience, an armed steamer and a picked crew, either of his own countrymen or North Americans, to whom he might add some of the excellent sailors of Paraguay, and I am quite sure he would carry a cargo from Buenos Ayres up the Vermejo in perfect safety to Oran, despite of Dr. Francia or any such bugbear. This, however, is an object which must have the cordial support and co-operation of the ruling powers. If they shut their eyes to the importance of its success, it would be labour thrown away for any individual to volunteer the attempt.