Page:Letters from the Battle-fields of Paraguay (1870).djvu/285



FROM ROZARIO TO CORRIENTES. 255

salt licks must be made, and where the uncaponized bulls drive the cows. The horses of Entre Rios are said to be large and good. Their habits and soft hoofs, however, render them useless on stony ground.

AVe passed Parana city at night, but I afterwards fre- quently revisited it. The approach from Diamante is pic- turesque ; the barranca in places is high on both sides ; the inlets of wooded ground, and the open slopes of grassy downs, like velvet with frayed nap, are a repose to the eye. Islands and sandbanks now become numerous ; the former are of brown earth, supporting luxuriant grass and thick shrubbery ; there is little driftwood upon them, and here- abouts no forest supplies snags. The extraneous matter is brought down from the upper stream, and forms many a " bank of patience.^^ These features will become very common above Bella Vista.

The Bajada, or landing-place of Parana city, is the usual gap in the tall cliff fronting a willow- grown islet, off which the current is at times a four-knot. The bush-crowned barranca shows lines of semi-fossilized strata, not the muddy alluvium of Pampasia. Near the water calcareous marls and clays alternate with hard shell-limestone, and higher up the cliff-face are two " calheiras^' — holes which supply white nodular calcaire. From these shells the Para- guayans extracted the " nacar^^ or mother-of-pearl with w hich they made their once celebrated inlaid work. This is an " Indian^^ art, apparently now lost.

Off the port lie a little steamer and four ships, awaiting cargo. There are about a dozen whitewashed houses, the rest being mere '^'jhompris^^ or hovels. Here lives Mr. Myers, formerly Montague, once in the Royal Navy, but since 1816, Independence year, an Argentine with a decided turn for Rosista politics ; wherefore he is a steamer-agent, and full of old local knowledge. Carts and carriages com-