Page:Letters from the Battle-fields of Paraguay (1870).djvu/300



LETTEE XIE

A WEEK AT CORRIENTES.

September 5-12, 1868.

Corrientes rests upon the margin of her noble river^ here bending eastward^ and showing to the north a lake-like expanse. As usual;, the landward slope of the bank^ a talus leading to a plateau 60 feet above the Parana, makes her appear from the water poor and scat- tered, showing only Cabildo and church towers, tree-tops and dingy brown tiles and thatches now outnumbering the Southern " azotea." Inside, " Taraqui " the " green lizard" as the Guaranis call the place, is, like Rozario, large and compact. Held to be the fourth or fifth city of the Re- public, it claims for its population 16,000 to 20,C00 souls, which I should take the liberty of reducing to 10,000. It is a parallelogram of at least a mile each way, numbering 60 to 70 cuadras. In 1863 it was represented by '^'^ about 1500 palm- thatched ranchos, 200 tiled roofs, 100 azoteas of one to two stories, 3 miradores, 24 pianos, 20 carriages, 6 flagstaves, and 6 schools.^' Now double all; the schools alone excepted.

We land upon a pier of two planks, about midway in the northern front, at a dwarf sandy inlet, studded with boulders of porous oxidized sandstone, coarse and honey- combed, abundantly weather-worked and water-washed. On the bank above is the Capitania del Puerto, at once theatre and promenade ; the idlers gather to see passengers^ luggage opened, and to grin at the overcharges of the ras-