Page:Letters from the Battle-fields of Paraguay (1870).djvu/446



416 TRIP TO ASUNCION.

them in her streets. The lower town was obliterated, the Custom-house seemed an ugly bit of Venice, the gasworks threatened to fall, the jetty was denoted by a hillock of coal rising black from the rushing brown swirl, and nothing but the emerald- tinted weeping willows seemed to enjoy the mighty footbath. The land, before all sere and sunburnt, was now beautifully fresh and grassy, and the uplands were dotted with thickly -tufted trees. Here we landed for a few minutes in company with my colleague, Mr. Consul Hutchin- son, whom I had not met since 1861. During these long years he had lived at Rozario — verily he must have as many lives as Realmah.

We anchored off Corrientes city on a rainy day. How dull, and low, and miserable it looked, with its foul tanneries to the south, and its muddy lines of so-called streets ! I could not forget the pleasant time passed there, but — never return to a place where you have been happy ! Then the Proveedor span by the Cerrito Island and the Tres Bocas ; and, late at night, delayed for a few minutes at the once redoubtable Humaita. She passed the Tebicuary mouth also during the hours of darkness. This shows how little a man may see when travelling far by steamer ; my American friends, un- lucky during the down trip, never sighted these two most important positions. Better, far better, under such circum- stances, is the boat.

I rose betimes on Friday, April 9, for now we were ploughing strange waters. We had run out of the " sour mornings ^^ of Buenos Aires. The dawn was crystal clear, and the river had changed its muddy grey-brown for the limpid sarsaparilla, like the black hue of the Upper Missis- sippi. Glassy smooths alternated with ruffled streaks, where wavy ripples played with the fresh breeze ; and our stern drew after it the apex of a cone which spread out behind in a double line of dancing wavelets. The banks were curtains