Though in the north of Santa Fé, towards the region of the Chaco, there are thick forests, the southern part is treeless, except for the ombu, and is a plain with rich pasturage and soil. Along the side of the province runs the Parana River, which can be ascended by flat-bottomed stern wheel vessels for many hundreds of miles; and from ports like those of Santa Fé and Villa Constitucion much agricultural produce in maize, wheat, linseed, and barley are dispatched. The sugar industry is gradually creeping into Santa Fé province. Nearly fifty flour mills have been erected, and there are also sawmills, meat preserving factories, and works for quebracho extracts. Though railways are penetrating in all directions through the province, having at the present time 3,000 miles of lines, the River Parana is, and long will be, the chief highway, because circumstances in the old times led to the principal towns being constructed on its banks, and because some of its tributaries are also navigable for a considerable distance. The Parana River stretches away north into Corrientes. There are places with tremendous areas of well-watered pastures; but the farther north one journeys the more the country becomes swampy and covered with heavy forest. The vegetation is tropical, and parrots with gay plumage disturb the silence of the woods with their shrieks. It is here that the forest Indians are to be found, particularly the Tobas and the Matacos. Formerly the tribes kept to their own territory; but with the coming of the white man, and particularly the importation of Russians, Poles, and Scandinavians to work in the lumber camps, this custom has gradually been broken down. The Indians resent the presence of the intruders, and there is many a black story of massacre. The forest Indians cannot be induced to work in the hewing of timber, but missionaries are doing a great deal in persuading them to take to farming and raising crops of maize or bananas. The Indians near the towns on the Parana River are taking to wearing European clothes. In the time of the sugar harvest in the west they will work for a month or so, but on their tramp back of several hundred miles they frequently fall out with one another, and there is fierce fighting and murdering of which the outer world never hears. Far in the forests, up to the present but little penetrated, the Indians are found in their original state, naked save for a loin cloth, producing fire by the rubbing of sticks, still utilising bows and arrows in warfare, and following the practice when an enemy has been slain of cutting off his head and using the skull as a drinking bowl. [Illustration: THE LONGEST GIRDER BRIDGE IN THE REPUBLIC, NEAR SANTA FÉ.]