An article in the _Telegrafo Mercantil_ of September 9, 1801 (reproduced in the _Junta de Historia y Numismatica americana_, Buenos Aires, 2 vols., 1914-5) contains very valuable information in regard to the mule trade. From 1760 to 1780 Salta sent between 40,000 and 50,000 mules annually to Peru. At Salta they were worth ten piastres each before they were broken in, and thirteen or fourteen afterwards; and they were sold at the age of four years. The _arrieros_, who conveyed European goods and home products (_ropas y frutas_), bought a large number of them. The _Telegrafo_ complains that this trade has been gradually transformed. The mules now came from Santa Fe and Cordoba to Salta two years old, and after the _invernada_ they were still, at fair time, barely three years old. They suffered much during the long journey to Lima, and the losses of the caravans were heavy. They could not be loaded for the journey, and, as the _arrieros_ could no longer secure adult and strong animals, the freight to the tableland had risen, to the serious loss of merchants on the coast. The reply of a Potosi mule-dealer (December 13th) clearly shows that the last years of the eighteenth century had been marked by increasingly heavy demands from Peru for Argentine mules. In order to meet these demands the Cordoba breeders had developed production. The buyers, coming to Salta from Lima, Cuzco, and Arequipa, took, without discussion or examination, the batches that were offered them. The correspondent of the _Telegrafo_ complains bitterly of these _caballeritos_ who came from Peru with their 100,000 piastres, and raised the price at Salta, alleging that their instructions were to get mules at any cost. Robertson gave in 1813 the recollections of a mule-dealer as to the convoys of mules between Santa Fe and the Andes, which had already ceased at that time. Each convoy or _arreo_ comprised 5,000 to 6,000 mules. They came from Entre Rios, or even from the Uruguay, whence they were brought, after crossing the Parana, to the Santa Fe ranches. The Santa Fe breeders owned the best part of the land on the left bank of the river. The expedition also included thirty waggons of goods and 500 draught-oxen; and fifty _gauchos_ were in charge of it. The main expense was then tobacco and _yerba_. One feature of this mule traffic that is emphasized in all the descriptions is that it was divided into two stages, with an interval between them, for breaking in. As we have already learned from Azcarate, Cordoba, Santa Fe, Santiago, and Salta kept the mules for two or three years before sending them to Peru. Cordoba and Santiago del Estero seem to have been important in connection with the industry of breaking in the mules. The sending of cattle on foot to Bolivia and Chile is now only a subsidiary element of the national economy, but it is not yet quite extinct, as the table on p. 53 shows.