Page:Letters from the Battle-fields of Paraguay (1870).djvu/290



260 FROM ROZARIO TO CORRIENTES.

was candle-moulding in New York^ and then poetical justice would not liave been done upon him in the shape of a dra- matic biography by ^t. Alexandre Dumas pere.

The next place of importance was La Esquina — the ^' corner^^ — which must not be confounded with La Esquina del Dourado further south. At this point the southern Rio Corrientes^drainingjthey say, the Ybera Lake, joins the Espi- nilla or Guayquiraro, the " home of the fat boy," which separates the Entre Rios province from its northern neigh- bour Corrientes. The settlement lies on the left bank, about three miles distant in a true line ; the site is a loma or ridge, and the shape is a long scatter of white houses with dark patches of orange-grove. A falua boat, flying the Argentine flag, suddenly came out of the creek, showing that water-way is not wanting. The masts of a ship rose from the river. AYe were told that she was the Prince Albert, a Nova Scotia collier, which struck upon a snag, or had a hole cut in her. Opposite La Esquina is Pajaro Blanco, a place of savages and montaraces, where Mr. Perkins would plant another colony to lead the ^'^vida fronteriza."

Early on the next morning we passed the Costa Tala, where the river widens to an enormous girth ; and at 7 a.m. we reached Goya. Here both banks are very flat, the bright green vegetation is very tall, and the stream is three and a half leagues wide — a long riverine island, one of a mighty many, splitting it into an eastern and a western channel. Large ships ascend the latter ; the former is com- paratively shallow. Many craft go up the Bocas de Abajo or lower mouth to the port, and descend again, losing six to seven leagues, rather than encounter the Boca de Arriba. The name Goya is a corruption of Gregoria, the wife of a Portu- guese settler, and must not be made with Mr. Mansfield '^ Goyaz," a province of the Brazil. Dating from 1820, it is one of the most thriving places in the upper Parana, and