A couple of centuries ago a bull and ten cows were abandoned. What became of them troubled no one. Long afterwards their descendants were found grazing, and they had increased to many thousand; now they have increased to many millions. They were sturdy cattle, but too numerous for the then exceedingly sparse population. Their hides, however, were profitable for sending to Europe; and many thousands of beasts were slain, and their carcases left to rot, in order that their skins might be sent across the seas. In 1794 merino sheep were imported from Spain. In 1824 Southdowns were imported from England. They made an excellent cross, and that was the start Argentina got in the growing of wool. There was no discovery that this part of South America was peculiarly suitable for European stock. There was just a slow but increasing consciousness of the fact that European animals were easily acclimatised, and had a greater breeding capacity than at home. The first European cattle did not come direct, but dribbled in by way of Brazil from Peru--a roundabout route. Indeed, for several centuries Spain, which was mistress of that part of the world, rigorously excluded all other countries from assisting in its development or having any share in its trade. Further, Peru, which was the most important of the Spanish settlements, had sufficient power at the Court of Spain to secure an insistence that all goods entering South America should do so by the door of Peru. You have only to glance at a map to see how absurd it was that articles intended for Buenos Aires or the east coast had to be shipped to the Isthmus of Panama, taken across to the Pacific side by mule caravan, shipped again down the coast to Peru, and then sent thousands of miles over mountains, through jungle and across uninhabited plains, to their destination. This intolerable condition of things, which Spain refused to change, had much to do with Argentina's casting off the yoke, in the beginning of the nineteenth century, and declaring itself as a republic. Though one hears much about the way Argentina has gone ahead as a cattle-raising country during the last decade, one must not lose sight of the fact that the Spaniards have been rearing cattle there for over three hundred years. Even when the possibilities began to be realised there were no means of land transport except by driving the beasts, and, except for the hides and tallow and subsequently the wool, there was little that could be sent to Europe.