Page:Letters from the Battle-fields of Paraguay (1870).djvu/261



UP THE PARANA RIVER TO ROZARIO. 231

far inland sliow, the present is the time for the charcoal burner. He must lead a wild kind of campaigning life, ever in heavy marching order, carrying with him all his belongings, exposed to every manner of insect plague, worse than the 'Higer" or the aboriginal " Indian,^' and perpetually battling with chills and fevers : yet these squatters must represent a fair item in an islanders popu- lation laid down at 2000.

On the edges of streams appear various aquatic plants, suggesting that the country could grow rice for a continent. The " eunco,"^ with papyrus-like head, is of two kinds, large and small, the Piri and the Piripiri of the Brazil. The ' Camalote'^ or pistia stratiotes, called the Aguape further north, veils the water with fat, liliaceous leaves, supporting the flower stalks. Hence the " Camalotes,^^ or floating islets, at times scattered over the river ; there are legends of '^tigers^^ and wild beasts being floated down by them into civilization — I never saw any that could compare with those of the Benin river. Along the lower reach are fields of rush and flag, inundated every year, and determined by the extent of the flood. Higher levels produce the Flechilla or arrow-grass, whose stems and seed-sheaths, matting the fleece, are odious to the sheep farmer. There is the " Paja Colorada^^ or red grass, with floss-like panicles, the Paja Cartadera or cutting grass, which is the true grass of the Pampa, and the Paja Brava or Totora, terms applied to many different species. The white plumes of the stiff" cane, whose tasselled head rises ten feet high, and the green leaves that gracefully droop about its base, recommend this " Pampas grass^^ to the ornamental grounds of England, where, however, it is useless. Here strange cattle refuse the rank growth, whilst those accustomed to such fodder thrive upon it. Captain Page says that it is common in eastern Virginia. Throughout these latitudes it belts the streams