Obeying the sociable instinct that so frequently links the railway line with the highway in these parts of the world, the main road runs close alongside the locomotive track. Where it goes the dark, rich soil gleams moistly in every dip, and each cup in the land holds its pool, for heavy rains have preceded the brilliant sunshine of the day. For many leagues the broad surface of the way has been broken by nothing beyond the inevitable attributes of such thoroughfares--the occasional pathetic heap that stands for the dead body of a horse or cow, or the bleaching framework of bones that gleam out sharply after the vultures' and caranchos' feast. But here at length comes a body of riders, half a dozen Gauchos, enveloped in ponchos of various patterns, who are pricking onwards at the easy canter that renders the conquest of any space whatever a question of mere time. Thudding over the hill-tops, splashing through the mud-holes below, the progress of the grim, silent centaurs is as inevitable and certain as the presence of the knives at their belts or the maté-bowl slung by the saddles. Then the train has sped ahead, dragging after it a world of its own as remote from the atmosphere that surrounds the six diminishing horsemen as is the clank of the engine from the light jingling of the silvered bridles. The crop of stone upon the land has become more prolific. The rock has come to adorn the sides of the table-lands more especially, breaking out with precision at the spot where each slope of the green eminences starts out abruptly from the level, after which it continues, unbroken, to the summit. The material, however, has been made to serve for purposes of utility, and here and there are corrals and walls of loosely piled stones, a novel sight to one who is working his way upwards from the south. The scarce ranchos, however, continue on much the same pattern that has characterised them throughout the journey. The crudeness of many of these is scarcely to be excelled in any part of the world. To imagine an edifice composed of the lids and sides of kerosene tins, roofed and finished off at the odd corners by straggling tufts of reed, is to picture the abode of by no means the most humble settler. One or two are embellished, it is true, by a rough trellis work from which the vine-leaves hang thickly, while others are decorated by nothing beyond a variety of multi-coloured garments that hang out in the sunshine to dry. Clustered together, the modest homesteads would appear sordid and mean. As it is, the open solitudes of which each stands as the human centre lend it a certain dignity that is not in the least concerned with the pattern of the structure itself.