The settlements founded on the coast by the Spaniards at the close of the eighteenth century (S. Jose and P. Deseado) were ephemeral. Only one of them maintained an obscure existence, Carmen de Patagones, some miles above the mouth of the Rio Negro. One of its chief resources was the export of salt. Expeditions for this purpose began on the Patagonian coast about the middle of the eighteenth century (_Journey from San Martin to Puerto San Julian about_ 1753, Coll. de Angelis, V). After the revolution, Buenos Aires finally abandoned these costly expeditions by land to the salt districts of the Pampa, and was supplied with salt by schooners from Carmen. During the war with Brazil and the blockade of the Rio de la Plata, Carmen, protected by the bar of the Rio Negro, and the Bay of San Blas were the harbours in which Argentine, English and French privateers concealed their prizes and did their repairs after the storms of the Gulf of Santa Catarina. D'Orbigny visited Carmen during this period of equivocal prosperity. One of the most curious effects of the hospitality offered to the privateers was the unloading upon the Patagonian coast of blacks, intended for Brazil, who were taken from the slave-traders. Thus an unforeseen eddy brought to the south of the Pampean region part of the current of the slave-trade intended for the sugar-cane plantations in tropical America. A number of the Carmen ranches had coloured workers at this time. Breeding, in fact, was just beginning to spread in the neighbourhood of Carmen at the time. The cattle had been brought by land from Buenos Aires, and had multiplied along the coast and the river above Carmen. South of Carmen, at San Jose, the cattle had run wild after the fort was abandoned. The Carmen herds were estimated, before the revolution, at 40,000 head. They disappeared during the revolutionary period, but were reconstituted immediately afterwards, and even during the war with Brazil there was an active export of hides and salt beef. Carmen profited mainly by trade with the Indians. It lived in terror of them, and had garrisons to give the alarm on the routes by which they could approach. But this state of chronic warfare did not prevent trade. Near Carmen there was a group of peaceful Indians who served as intermediaries with the tribes of the interior, who were jealous and hostile. Guides and interpreters were found in this colony, and through it came the first news of the interior. The traffic with the Indians continued for a long time to be of great use to the colonists. In 1865 the Welsh colony established on the Chubut, which had many difficulties at first, was saved from complete disaster by its trade with the Indians.