independence of Monte Video of Buenos Ayres, so as to diminish as much as possible the danger of both being closed at the same time and by the same political events. We say the entire independence of Monte Video, for though the nominal independence of the country might be preserved, even if the Buenos Ayrean army, under General Oribe, should get possession of the city of Monte Video, that officer would be compelled to lean on General Rosas for support to protect him against the majority of his fellow countrymen, who are now in arms against him quite as much as the chiefs of the Banda Oriental were in 1826, 7, and 8, compelled to lean on Buenos Ayres for protection against the arms of Brazil; and to follow the fortunes of Buenos Ayres in any war in which General Rosas might involve himself, either with Brazil or any of the nations of Europe. This would again be fatal to the trade of the River Plate. It is not generally known, although it is very important that it should be, that this trade amounted in 1842, including both imports and exports, to upwards of Three Millions sterling, at the port of Monte Video alone. It is still, however, in its infancy, and requires nothing but a few years of peace, with the introduction of steam navigation on the Parana, the Uruguay, and their tributaries,[A] to give it an extension which will render it of vital importance to the merchants and manufacturers of England. The Parana and the Paraguay, together, are known to be navigable to Assumption, which is fifteen hundred miles above Buenos Ayres, to vessels drawing nine feet water, and there is every reason to believe that both those rivers might be navigated a thousand miles higher by iron steamers, such as those recently built at Birkenhead, by order of the East India Company, for the navigation of the Indus and the Sutlej, the former of which, when carrying guns and troops, draw only four feet water, the latter of which, when loaded in the same manner, not more than two and a half. The Uruguay is equally navigable for several hundred miles to the Salto Chico, (the little leap), and if a short canal was cut, to turn that rapid and the much more formidable one of the Salto Grande,[B] it would be navigable for many hundred miles above the Falls. Several of the tributaries of these gigantic streams are larger than the Rhine, the Elbe, or the Tagus, and great numbers of them than the Thames or the Mersey, and the whole of this vast net-work of waters is connected with the still more stupendous river of the Amazons, by a short portage to the Madeira, one of the principal tributaries of that king of rivers. The natural products which these unrivalled lines of river communication might be made the means of bringing to the ports on the Rivers Plate and Amazons are varied and inexhaustible. In addition to the large supplies of hides, wool, tallow, and provisions, which these countries now furnish, Paraguay and