Page:Letters from the Battle-fields of Paraguay (1870).djvu/248



218 UP THE URUGUAY RIVER.

and sickly, pallid, ague-stricken faces told me how little the climate suited them.

Having time to spare, and my feet "itching for a journey/-' I resolved to visit Salto, the terminus of Uruguay navigation. The river in this section becomes exceedingly picturesc le. After passing a neat, clean Swiss colony which shows signs of roads, we find on the left bank those sandstone blufis that have made travellers compare Father Uruguay with Father Ehine. A flat table, surrounded by rock precipices, falling into an earthslope, and brought up by thick dwarf forest below, is pointed to us as the " Mesa de Artigas.^^ Tradition declares that the wild potentate, D. Pepe, who is described by all the travellers of the day, used here to cut his prisoners^ throats and toss them from the plateau into the water. On both shores now begins a wealth of limestone ; it is, however, hard as marble and expensive to burn. Frequent arroyos divide the fine grazing grounds, and the lomas or uplands are tasselled with the Coquito palm.

Presently we sight on both sides of the river the normal white sheet that argues a settlement. The right bank supports Concordia of Entre Rios ; opposite it, in the Banda Oriental, lies Salto, " the Cascade," whose site is similar to that of Paysandii. Nor will the town require description. It has a pier, a Custom-house, three long parallel streets ex- tending up the ridge, a main square, a Matriz, poor and yellow â€” the Saltefios appear more busy in temporal than in spiritual matters. The Hotel de la Concordia, kept by one Diogo Zavala ; an upper square ; a Maua^s bank, pre- sided over by the courteous M. Queque; and an office of the Morgan Company, Limited (sample-rooms of salted beef, 48, Oldhall Street, London), where J). Kicardo Williams is the ruler.

Salto was blockaded by the Brazilian Commodore, Joa-