A curious feature in the Argentine is the absence of navigable rivers. With the exception of the treacherous Paraná and the Uruguay, enclosing the provinces of Entre Rios and Corrientes, there is not a single waterway, natural or artificial. The result of this has been an enormous network of railways spreading over the central provinces with isolated offshoots north and west. The consequent great influx of capital would naturally have encouraged a large import trade; but the prohibitive tariff has succeeded in retaining the money in the country, while the revenue derived has, almost without exception, been uneconomically employed. The result is that, apart from an occasional monopoly that has succeeded, the only large gainers from this policy have been the town property holders. A large part, however, of the province of Buenos Aires is liable to periodic inundation, and, to obviate this, an extensive system of drainage has been planned, a work of great difficulty owing to the small difference of altitude between the land and the sea. Some canals, however, are in course of construction of which advantage might possibly be taken, if they were made of sufficient depth, for local transport. If this were done, a large and important part of the country would be provided with a cheaper alternative to the railway. In a volume descriptive of the Republic (published, in English, by the Department of Agriculture) this possibility is foreshadowed, stress being laid on the slight fall from the Andes to the coast, and a scheme, chimerical on the face of it, of a system of trans-continental canals is vaguely outlined. But, being so wildly improbable, it seems to have no existence, even problematical, outside the pages of that advertisement. CHAPTER II. THE RAILWAYS.