Page:Letters from the Battle-fields of Paraguay (1870).djvu/280



250 FROM ROZARIO TO CORRIENTES.

to June (the minimum of temperature being in June and July 30Â° to 5GÂ° Falir.) ; during this semestre the Parana first drains the torrential rains of the Brazilian highlands, discharged through the great affluents, and next the Paraguay- is fed hy the Xarayes marshes ; while somewhat later the Bermejo and the Pilcomayo bring down the melted snows of the Bolivian Andes. At this season the inundations are frequently severe, the Parana acting upon the Paraguay by damming it up, and the floods of 1868-9 materially afi'ected the war operations of the Allies. Modern travellers know little of the upper bed of the Parana : navigation is arrested by the Salto del Apipe, 780 miles from Buenos Aires, and few living Europeans have visited La Guayra (1070 miles), described by old authors as an awful cataract, but really a succession of rapids some twelve leagues long.

Adieu to llozario of the Bats : the last we see of it is the little red-tiled Methody chapel, the brickwork of the big station, and the wooden shoot leading to Mr. Wheelwright's wharf, where ships bringing material for the railway are discharged. There has been a terrible " seca^' or drought hereabouts, lasting from April to August. It accounts for the prairie fire by night and, by day, for the smoke forming in all directions lurid dust-clouds ; these, solid to sight as a wall, sweep up from the right of the river and linger in our rear. The warm, unpleasant, nerve-trying Viento Norte, the norther which causes murders from Buenos Aires to Pernambuco, has gradually changed to a steady Pampero, and sends flying up under a press of canvas the mob of palhabotes and goletas (schooners) which are often delayed grumbling for weeks. Here square-rigged craft are the fashion — the wind regular as a trade, blowing up or down stream, and mostly up, as the palms bending to the north pro\'e. However good for navigation, a strong south-wester about Rozario makes the Parana very dangerous. The gale