Page:Letters from the Battle-fields of Paraguay (1870).djvu/286



256 FROM ROZARIO TO CORRIENTES.

municate with the town^ which is a good league inland^ and about 200 feet higher than the river. From above and below the Bajada we see its churchy San Miguel^ domi- neering the rabble of low buildings. For eight years Parana was the Federal capital — very well placed for General Urquiza's interests' very badly for those of the Confederation, being at least 390 miles from Buenos Aires. The national "Caravan Government" abandoned it in September 1861.

From Parana a little steamer runs up to Santa Fe, crossing the stream ai)d threading a network of lagoons. Here begin, on the west bank, the long lines of riverine islets formed by the true Parana and its western channel, or rather the lateral loop, making a stream six leagues broad known as the Rio de San Javier. To the north of it is that geo- graphical puzzle, the Saladillo Dulce, which, according to the rise and fall of the Parana, flows either to the east or the west, now becoming an influent, then an affluent.

West of the Saladillo stream runs the Salado, representing the Red River of the Mississippi valley ; it separates the province of Santa Fe from El Gran Chaco or Chaco Gualamba— a wild Guarani word, from which we are sup- posed to guess the aspect of the place. The name of this " hell of Spaniards and Paradise and Elysium of savages" is translated yi^oq, a lair, a great wild chase : it means a herd of Vicunas and Guanacos. According to Guevara, the term was originally applied to the doab formed by the Bermejo and the Pilcomayo. It was then extended to the area of 216,000 square miles — big enough for an empire, or for four South American republics — stretching 10Â° north of Santa Fe, and 6Â° west from the Paraguay River. Helms (1806) asserts that Chaco, the ancient name of the land about Chuquisaca or Sucre city, gradually extended to the southern loAvlands. An abundance of old Spanish and Jesuitic litera- ture describes this unoccupied paradise, which is still as it was.