Page:Letters from the Battle-fields of Paraguay (1870).djvu/328



298 FROM CORRIENTES TO HUMAITA.

E-io de la Plata ; this, however, claimed the whole country up to the Tebicuary.

The curves approaching the place where the two rivers meet in their might are divided by a long narrow spit of land frequently flooded. The surface of the country is com- posed of swamps — not " salt-swamps " as some have written — rejoicing in a variety of names, whose use, however, differs in the several places. The "laguna" is a real pool or lakelet, replenished by floods, and retained by a hard clay floor. The " banado " is a field of deep adhesive mud and stagnant water, somewhat wetter than the " pantano " or morass. The " estero," erroneously said to be a Quichua^ word, but derived from the piri or South American papyrus, and the esteros (rushes), which line it, is a stream sluggishlj^ flowing through a big swamp. Thus our maps show the northern and the southern Estero bellaco — not " Terovellaco," as Mr. Mans- field has it (p. 310) — to be the meridional strip of the great Neembucu bog, which extends from east to west parallel with the right bank of the Paraguay river. These waters are di- vided by " lomas,^^ or " lomadas,^"* waves of ground rising a few feet above the flood level of the quagmires. They sup- port an almost impassable jungle, composed of monte, or thorn thicket ; " isletas," or bosques of trees ; " macegales," small shrubberies ; " pajonales " and " canaverales," beds of reedy grass six feet tall, and " palmares," or " palmazales," where rise " alamedas," or avenues of lofty whispering palms. And a mixture of all these pleasant features is termed a "carrisal," as opposed to tierra firma.

The only settlements in the carrisal are "capillas," or wretched huts surrounding churches of noble elevation, and decorated with carved pulpits, fancy roofs, frescos, ornamental

Guidebook.
 * " It is called estero, which in the Quichua tongue signifies a lake." —