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 were growing plants, somewhat like water lilies, and grasses, while a short distance away the trees looked parched and dry. At one of the villages there were about forty Indians, one or two horses, and a small flock of goats and sheep. The surface of the water pool upon which this settlement depended was not more than 12 meters square and shallow; but the village was old, and the spring was the only source of water. It was not a bubbling spring, such as one will find in the mountains or in favorable situations where there is a descent from higher ground, but merely a pool. In these montes there are water- holding plants particularly useful to man and beast in the eastern Chaco.

Farther on, or more than 200 miles in a straight linc west of Villa Concepcion, the country continues dry, and palms appear plentifully, indicating a lower level of the land. In no other part of the Chaco do springs occur, at least in the knowledge of my informant, who believes that the line of springs is due to uplift and erosion and thus exposure at the surface of a water- bearing stratum. Under these circumstances no intensive agriculture and no intensive use of the pasture land of the interior of the Chaco can be expected until well borings are made that bring to the surface the abundant water apparently existing underground. The water must be distributed in a manner that improves on nature before stock farms can be developed and cattle driven, as they must be for many years, to the river or the railway.

The interior of the Chaco is not yet a safe place either for agriculture or for stock raising. Parts of it are inhabited by the Matacos and Tobas Indians, the former occupying approxi- mately the upper courses of the Pilcomayo and Bermejo and the latter the middle and lower courses. The Tobas long had one of the worst reputations of all Indian groups in South America. Matacos, closely related to the Tobas, also made raiding expeditions out of the Chaco upon the pack trains and oxcarts that went up from Buenos Aires to Tucuman,