The Littorine Provinces are, Buenos Ayres, and Santa Fé, to the west, and Entre Rios and Corrientes to the east of the River Paranã. Those in the Central section, on the high road to Peru, are Cordova, Santiago del Estero, Tucuman, and Salta; to which may be added, Catamarca, and La Rioja. Those lying west of Buenos Ayres, and which formerly constituted the Intendency of Cuyo, are San Luis, Mendoza, and San Juan. All these together now form the confederation of the United Provinces of La Plata. Under the Spanish rule, the Viceroyalty of Buenos Ayres comprehended further, the provinces of Upper Peru, now called Bolivia; as well as Paraguay, and the Banda Oriental: and immense as this jurisdiction appears for one government, it was but a portion separated from that of the old viceroys of Peru, whose nominal authority at one time extended from Guayaquil to Cape Horn, over 55 degrees of latitude, comprising almost every habitable climate under the sun; innumerable nations, speaking various languages, and every production which can minister to the wants of man. To Spain, it was a convenience and saving of expense to divide her American possessions into as few governments as possible; and under her colonial system, without a hope of improving their social condition, their native industry discouraged, and the very fruits of the soil forbidden them, in order to ensure a sale for those of the mother country, it was of little consequence to the generality of the people by what viceroy they were ruled, or at what distance from them he resided. It became, however, a very different matter when that colonial system was overthrown, and succeeded by native governments of their own election. Then, all the many and various distinctions of climate, of language, of habits, and productions, burst into notice; and as they separately put forward their claims to consideration, the difficulty, if not impossibility, became manifest, of adequately providing for them by the newly-constituted authorities, which, although succeeding to all the jurisdiction of the viceroys, repudiated _in limine_ the principles of the system under which such discordant interests had hitherto been controlled and held together.