Page:Letters from the Battle-fields of Paraguay (1870).djvu/256



226 UP THE PARANA RIVER TO ROZARIO.

amongst the " Isleria/^ or Islandry proper^ and the caracols or windings of the mouths : scenery which owes to Presi- dent Sarmiento what Laura did to Petrarch. The proprie- torship — a more material matter — is still a moot point between the National and Provincial Governments. 1 after- wards visited these waters in company with the President,, and I can well understand why the " Archipelago of Cara- pachay^"* was called " Tempe Argentina.^^

From the Lujan, whose bar is shallow, we sight the ships lying off S. Fernando, and the white houses on the green " barranca"*^ here at its highest, thirty- five metres. Thence we run up the wonderfully tortuous Arroyo del Capitan, a vein some 100 yards wide, with occasional openings and outlets to starboard, which show the main stream, a muddy Mediterranean. It reminds me of the Whydah Lagos Lagoon subtending the Slave Coast in all the terrible beauty of Africa. Here and there the resemblance is increased by a wretched road, fronted and backed by swamp, with canoes, the horses of the country, ready to aid in escaping from hostile floods. After nearly four hours amongst the islands of the Parana, a garland of emeralds like " Insulind" formed by cross cuts passing between main lines of dis- charges, our steamer debouches from the Capitan vein into the main artery, Parana of the Palms, here three to four miles broad with the jump of a sea. At the mouth it is 4*50 metres deep, but it shallows rapidly at Praya Honda, where it is fit only for ships of light draughts, and that only in the best state of water and weather. Another four hours-' spell shows on the right bank La Campana, "the bell." Below the high talus is a big shed, a saladero, buried in a wealth of willows, and above it rise the large and handsome white house and Estancia of the ex-MinisterD.Eduar do Costa. Higher up is Zarate, a mead fringed with the salix, and a half-finished dwarf pier for landing a few passengers, the