The use of _banados_ for agriculture is of long standing. It probably goes back to the pre-Columbian period. Father Dobritzhoffer, who is the first to refer clearly to it, compares the Rio Dulce to the Nile[44]; and in point of fact, the _banados_ have some resemblance to farming in Pharaonic Egypt, while there is nothing like them in the irrigated zones of the Andean valleys. The _banados_ were then devoted to the cultivation of wheat and pumpkins. The pumpkin, which is of American origin, had not yet been eliminated by wheat, which was introduced by the Spaniards. The wheat produced in the _banados_ maintained a fairly active export trade at the beginning of the nineteenth century, and the _banados_ were at times called, with some exaggeration, the "granary of the Vice-royalty." It is difficult to trace accurately the movements of the population of the _banados_ because of the constant changes of the administrative areas in the province of Santiago. The total population of the province is not now more than three per cent. of the total population of Argentina, but its comparative importance was much greater in the middle of the nineteenth century (nearly eight per cent. at the census of 1861). The departments of Loreto, Atamisqui, and Salavina on the Rio Dulce, which live mainly on the estates of the _banados_, comprised 46,000 inhabitants in 1861, and only 43,000 in 1895. The Woodbine Parish map and Hutchinson's description clearly give one an impression of a dense population in the area of the _banados_. I refer elsewhere to the antiquity and constancy of the streams of temporary immigration which spread the population of the _banados_ over a large part of the territory of Argentina.[45] The temporary emigration of the Santiaguenos is distributed amongst most of the provinces of central and northern Argentina, but it is chiefly of interest in connection with the frontier region. The Santiagueno is a woodman above all else, and the forest area has the advantage over the other labour-markets of wanting workers at all seasons, summer or winter, whereas the sugar-cane harvest at Tucuman and the harvest in the south only last a few months. They emigrate from the _banados_ to Tucuman in May; to Cordoba and Santa Fe in October, November and December; but to the forests of the Chaco all the year round. [44] _Historia de Abiponibus._ [45] See the chapter on population. [Illustration: THE LAND OF THE BANADOS. _On the Rio Dulce, near Loreto, in the dry season. Its actual bed, excavated at a recent date by a flood in soft clay, is not yet stable._ Photograph by the Author.]