Page:Letters from the Battle-fields of Paraguay (1870).djvu/303



A WEEK AT CORRIENTES. 273

feet long, placed, like the tiles, side by side, one line convex, the other concave, but not fixed with mortar at the edges ; indeed, apparently not fastened at all.

The outskirts show mere " ramadas," sheds and flying roofs, tenanted mostly during the daytime by big mastiffs, savage as the dogs of Petropolis. We find in the choking nionte a luxuriance of castor-shrub ; a tangle of sarsa- parilla ; yellow dhatura with gigantic trumpets ; the cylin- drical cactus, here, as at Buenos Aires, a gnarled tree ; the monster aloes ; the tuna, and the edible tunita (the Mexican tenoch), which awaits an improved breed of the indigenous cochineal. A few cotton plants linger about the bush. Messrs. Robertson found the Corrientes pro- vince well fitted for the shrub ; but the industry has never been exploited. Of the larger trees are the "carandai" and the palms, used for roofing and paling; various acacias and mimosas, especially the algarroba, carob, locust, or St. John's bread. It is in this region an indigenous species, and the people do not ferment it to chicha. Oranges, here valuable, because apparently the staple produce and export of the land, are plentiful, sweet, and good without a " hand's turn" being done to them. The tree takes about eight years to grow, after which it is worth, now that everything is exceptionally expensive, one silver dollar per annum. The Paraguayans make orange wine, but it is too sweet and luscious for human nature's daily drink. And neither Correntinos nor Paraguayans have learned to preserve the fruit, which at once decays. Some of the naranjales farms or orchards are of great size, containing thousands of trees, which produce half a million to 800,000 fruits per annum.

From Rioja Street we turned left down the second best, the Calle de Julio (9th July, 1816, National Independence proclaimed at Tucuman),and visited M. Carlos Candido Prytz, who is living between two boot signs, black and yellow.

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