Temporary emigration began, no doubt, with the journeys which brought the northerners to Buenos Aires as drivers of convoys of wagons. Santiaguenos were numerous amongst these _troperos_. Lorenzo Fazio collected reminiscences of these journeys in the land of the _banados_.[140] They go back to the first quarter of the nineteenth century, the period before the diversion of the Rio Dulce and the ruin of Salavina and Atamisqui. "My father," said one of his informants, "drove wagons of wheat to Cordoba, and sometimes to Buenos Aires, where he sold them and bought goods-stuffs in exchange. He bought the wheat at Loreto, Atamisqui or Salavina. It was a year before he got back, because it was necessary to wait for the rain and the growth of the vegetation, otherwise his animals would have died of thirst or hunger on the road." The journeys of the _troperos_ meant a long spell of idleness in the Pampean region, precisely at the harvest season. Naturally, they would lend a hand in it. [140] Lorenzo Fazio, _Memoria descriptiva de la provincia de Santiago del Estero_ (Buenos Aires, 1889). The temporary emigration of the Santiaguenos continued throughout the nineteenth century. It was maintained even during the disturbances under the government of Rosas, which almost entirely put an end to commercial relations between Buenos Aires and the northern provinces. When Galvez passed through the villages on the Rio Dulce he noticed that there were few men in them. They had scattered over the roads or were, as he says, _andariegos_. Only the women remained. The province of Buenos Aires received the Santiaguenos in crowds, offering their services. Chivilcoy and the whole region of the _chacras_ of maize and wheat received their caravans for the harvest, and some were kept for the sowing. Even the ranchers took advantage of this reinforcement, and hired the men for marking. In the autumn they went back with their _tropillas_, much dreaded by the breeders whose land they crossed, stealing any horses that were not well guarded. The province of Santa Fe, especially in the agricultural departments of the north-west, is now the chief theatre in the Pampean region for the immigration of the Santiaguenos. It does not always come by rail, but has to some extent preserved its primitive and picturesque features. The immigrants arrive in troops on mules and horses, and scatter in November over the colonies.