The Region (la Región) is the single territory in which every city, estate, debt, war and death of its records takes place: a coast colonized with its back to the interior, with a port bay, a desert of catacombs and two currencies.
Terrain
The land is uneven, with few vertical features; some sectors have “no trees here”, and there are mountains and sea. In the south, among cliffs, lies “the port bay”. The estates of Santa María at one end and the city at the other form the southern axis, with the port between. On the opposite edge are the desert around the catacombs, where “everyone runs and gets lost” (the bandit José María is said to have been lost there), and “a region full of ashes” where bodies were burned, with “a kind of grotto dug into one part”.
Climate and distances
Humid rather than windy: rain at night, morning mist, cool air; “what makes it cooler is the humidity.” Sailing south, “it will get colder and colder.” A stretch like Tyre–Petra–Jerusalem–Jericho is “no more than three or four hundred kilometers”, yet without coaches “400 kilometers can take you a few days.”
Money
“There are pesos, but we translate them all into pounds.” The pound is the stable currency: Lord Ponsbury pays in it, and the English bet and trade in it. The House of Baring handles land contracts and loans and has “many people hooked.”
Order
Spanish, “the language of those who worked in Spain”, is spoken in Isidora. An unnamed regime shows two faces: on the night of 24 May it opens a theater with Amantes y celosos todos están locos (“Lovers and the jealous are all mad”), and sends the Mazorca round with lists; when it “brought out the list”, fear followed. Cider (cidra) is drunk, associated with the Río Colorado.
Wars
Externally the Region fights the parambucos, “the equivalent of the Empire of Brazil”; internally, civil wars against Artigas.
Open questions
- The Region has no proper name.
- The internal enemy appears as Artigas and Arslan: one man misheard or two.
- Whether ashes and catacombs are one zone, how far from the city, and whether the southern city is Isidora.
- Whether the “double oak of the south” and “los colos” are real features or copying noise.
- The peso–pound exchange rate, total extent, population and northern and western limits.