SANTA FE, one of the riverine provinces of the Argentine Con federation, South America, extends along the right bank of the Rio Parantt, from about 29° to 33° S. lat., and between 59° 30' and 62 W. long., but the boundaries are not very distinctly defined.. It is bounded S. by the province of Buenos Ayres; E. by Entre Rios; N.E. by Corrientes; N. by the Indian country called the Gran Chaco; and W. by the province of Cordova. The area is about 41,000 square miles ; the population is under 20,000.
The country is low and much of it very infertile ; iu its natural state it is mostly covered with coarse grass, thistles, and low mimosa trees. The surface is described generally under ARGENTINE CoNre neieerrox. The southern, where it adjoins Buenos Ayres, is the only boundary which is not formed by a desert. A large portion of the country along the Parana( is a barren swamp, while the southern part is subject to very destructive periodical droughts. On the eastern side, where it abuts on Cordova, is the low uncultivated tract in which is situated the Laguna de los Porongos, and in which the rivers Primer° and Segundo are lost. The northern boundary is the desert known as the Gran Chaco. But a large portion of the interior of the province is also unfit for agriculture, though it supplies iudifferent pasture for cattle, which, with horses and mules, constitute the com mercial wealth of the province. Formerly Santa Fe was the centre of communication between Buenos Ayres and the western provinces, with Paraguay, whose enormous supply of mate to those provinces, Chili, and Peru, mostly passed through Santa F6. But the closure of Paraguay to external commerce, the disturbed state of Santa Fe, owing to domestic dissensions, and the frequent encroachments of the Indians from the Gram Chaco, almost entirely destroyed its trade, and reduced the inhabitants to poverty. Santa Fe is however ea admirably situated for commerce that it cannot be doubted that, if the tran quillity of the country could be secured, the partial revival of trade, which has taken place since the opening of the navigatiou of the Rio Parana, will be more than maintained ; indeed it might be almost indefinitely extended with a larger, more wealthy, industrious, peaceable, and energetic people. The major part of the inhabitants are of Guarini origin, who settled here after the expulsion of the Jesuits in 1790. There are also many Indiana, who reside in villages
(of which Sauce, 7 miles west of the city of Santa Fe, its the chief), and spin the cloth and make the ponchos usually worn in the country; they aro however generally wretchedly poor and degraded. Santa Fe, like the other provinces of the Argentine Confederation, owns a nominal dependence on the central government; the executive power is vested in a governor elected by the provincial assembly.
Santa Fe, the capital of the province, is a meanly-built place on the Rio Salado, a few miles above its confluence with the Parand, in 31° 38' S. lat., 60' 49' W. long.: population about 3500. The town consists of a central square, and eight streets branching off from it at right angles, and contains the government buildings and four large churches, one of which is of considerable splendour. The part has convenient quays, but at certain seasons there are not more than 8 or 4 feet of water on the bar at the mouth of the river. The town was formerly the ontrepOt of the goods which were exchanged between the western states and Paraguay, but that branch of commerce entirely failed when Paraguay broke off all connection with the adjacent coun tries, and at present the little trade it has is all in the hands of Italians, who navigates the Parand and Plata by vessels of from 20 to 100 tons burden. It has some overland trade with Monte Video, from which it receives foreign goods.
Rosario, situated on the high and precipitous bank of the Parana, a considerable distance below Santa Fa, appears likely to become the commercial emporium of the province, being situated in a fertile dis trict, conveniently placed for the steamers navigating the Parana ; and much the most convenient port for the foreign commerce of the western and north-western provinces. It wears already a far more commercial appearance thau the capital; has a larger populatiou ; and the inhabit ants are said to be industrious and diligent, Mr. M'Cabe, whose visits were made for commercial purposes, says, in his Two Thousand Miles Ride through the Argentine Provinces,' that " next to Monte Video, Rosario is the most rising port in this part of South America."