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RIVERS LOST IN THE PLAINS.

PART II.

are the stories which are told of the unexpected visits of jaguars (tigers, as the people of the country call them), so conveyed from their ordinary haunts to Buenos Ayres and Monte Video. One was shot in my own grounds near Buenos Ayres, and some years before no less than four were landed in one night at Monte Video, to the great alarm of the inhabitants when they found them prowling about the streets in the morning.

In the swampy region of Xarayes, where the inundation commences, the ants, which are in vast numbers there, have the instinct to build their nests in the tops of the trees, out of reach of the waters, and of a kind of tenacious clay, so hard that no cement can be more durable or impervious to the weather and moisture.

During the inundation the river is exceedingly turbid, from the great quantity of vegetable substances and mud brought down by it: in the low lands, where it overflows its bed, these substances are spread far and wide over the surface, forming a grey slimy soil, which, on the abatement of the waters, is found to increase the vegetation in a surprising degree.

From the very low and flat nature of the plains which extend from the eastern slopes of the Andes to the Paraguay, many rivers which descend from them are either partially or entirely lost, after long and tortuous meanderings, in swamps and lakes, the waters of which are carried off by evaporation during the heats of summer. This seems to

be the case with the Pilcomayo where it ceases to be navigable, but is still more strikingly exemplified in the river Pasages, or Salado, which, from the great extent of country it passes through, and the many other streams it collects in its course from the province of Salta to Santa Fé, would be a river of the first importance, were not the greater part of its waters lost in the level plains through which it runs.

The Rio Dulce, which, passing by Tucuman and Santiago del Estero, runs parallel to it, disappears in the great lake called the Porongos, in the Pampas of the province of Santa Fé. The Primero and Segundo, which rise in the province of Cordova, disappear in the same plains. The Rio

Tercero, the most important river of that province, with difficulty finds its way during part of the year to the bed of the Čarcaraña, which falls into the Paraná, near San Espíritu, below Santa Fé. The Quarto and the Quinto, and, still further south, the waters of the rivers from Mendoza and San Luis, are lost in the morasses and lakes which form so striking a feature in the physical geography of that part of the continent.

It is worth notice that almost all the rivers to the west of the Paraguay are more or less impregnated with salt, running through the red saliferous deposits of the lower ranges of the Andes ;* in which they strikingly contrast with those which join the Paraná from the eastern side, which are all as perfectly fresh.

Of these the principal is the river Uruguay, which contributes with the Paraná to form the great estuary of La Plata, and takes its name from its numerous falls and rapids. The whole extent of its course is about 270 leagues. It rises in latitude 27° 30', in the Sierra de Sta. Catalina, which there bounds the S.E. coast of Brazil, and for a long distance runs nearly due west, receiving, besides many affluents of less importance, the Uruguay-Mini (or Little Uruguay) from the south, and the Pepiry-Guazú (or Great Pepiry) from the north. As it approaches the Paraná it changes its course, inclining southward through the fertile territories in which the Jesuits established their once celebrated Missions. Opposite to Yapeyú, the last of those establishments, it receives, in latitude 29° 30', the Ybicuy, a considerable stream from the east. In 30° 12′ the Mirinay pours into it from the west a considerable portion of the drainage of the vast lake or swamp of Ybera. Its principal tributaries afterwards are the Gualeguaychú, from the province of Entre Rios, and the Rio Negro, the largest river of the Banda Oriental, soon after receiving which it falls into the Plata with the Paraná, in about 34° south latitude.

Flowing through a country the geological constitution

* As stated previously, the most abundant rocks of the secondary series in the Andes correspond to our gypseous and saliferous sandstones and marls of the

midland districts of England, so abundant here as elsewhere in saltpits and brine springs.

234

SPANISH SURVEYS.

PART II.

of which totally differs from that through which the Paraguay runs, its navigation is interrupted by many ledges of rocks and falls, only passable when the waters are at their highest, during the periodical inundations, or by portages in the dry season. Of these the Salto Grande and Salto Chico (the great and small falls), a little below the 31st degree of latitude, are the first and worst impediments met with in ascending the river. The former consists of a rocky reef running like a wall across its bed, which at low water is at times crossed by the gauchos of the country on horseback, though during the floods it is passable in boats, by which the river is navigable without further danger as high up as the Missions.

The higher parts of the river are bounded by dense forests of noble trees in great variety, and in its bed are found beautiful specimens of silicified wood and variegated pebbles, of which I brought many to this country.

The Rio Negro (or Black River), which runs into the Uruguay from the Banda Oriental, derives its name from the hue of the sarsaparilla plant, which at a particular season rots upon its banks, and falls into the stream in such immense quantities as to discolour its waters, which are found to be highly medicinal, and much in request in consequence. The little village of Mercedes, near its mouth, is resorted to by invalids from Buenos Ayres to drink these waters.

The course of the river Paraguay, as high as the Jaurú, was carefully laid down after the treaty of 1750; and the Spanish officers appointed to determine the boundary line between the possessions of Spain and Portugal, in virtue of that subsequently signed at San Ildefonso in 1777, surveyed the Paraná as high as the Tieté, as well as the whole of the Uruguay, and all their most important affluents. The results of their labours may justly be ranked amongst the most important geographical surveys of the last century. Copies of the whole existed at Buenos Ayres during my residence there, in the hands of Colonel Cabrer, one of the officers originally attached to the commission; and the Argentine Government, I understood, was in treaty for the purchase of them for the use of the

topographical department of the state, where, it is to be hoped, they will not be buried and lost to the world as they were in the time of the Spaniards.

A contribution to the geography of these countries, scarcely less important, has been recently made by the British Government, in the elaborate surveys of the rivers Paraná and Uruguay, executed by Captain Sulivan, R.N.,* under the able direction of Sir Francis Beaufort, Hydrographer to the Navy. The series of beautiful charts just published by the Admiralty, which embrace the whole course of the Paraguay as high as Corrientes, and of the Uruguay to Paysandú, from their large scale, and the numerous soundings marked upon them, cannot but greatly facilitate the navigation of these rivers within the above mentioned limits. Captain Sulivan's surveys were executed during the operations of the British naval forces in 1846,† when the fact that steam-vessels of considerable burthen and draught of water could ascend these rivers to a very great distance, especially during the season of the freshes, was fully established. A striking instance of this was afforded in the case of H.M. steamer " Alecto," of 200-horse power and 800 tons burthen, which in 39 days made the voyage from Monte Video to Corrientes and back, the distance gone being little under 2000 miles.

On the passage up, and little more than half way, she overtook a convoy of sailing vessels which had left Monte Video whilst she was still fitting in England: they had been as many weeks as the "Alecto" had been days in getting so far.

Those vessels were 112 days in reaching Corrientes from Monte Video, corroborating fully an opinion which I ventured to publish as long ago as 1839, that if the navigation of the upper parts of the Paraná was thrown open, as some of the Riverine provinces had at times desired, it could never be an object to European sailing vessels to avail themselves of it, inasmuch as the passage up,

* According to Capt. Sulivan, when the river is high, vessels drawing 16 feet may ascend it as far as the pass of San Juan, in lat. 30° 36′, and those drawing 12 feet may go up to Corrientes, with 2 feet to spare; but when the Paraná is at its

lowest, vessels attempting to ascend it should not draw more than 6 feet.

† See an interesting narrative of these operations, called 'Steam-Warfare in the Paraná,' by Commander Mackinnon, R.N., the Captain of the Alecto, published in 1848

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NAVIGATION OF INLAND WATERS.

PART II.

against the stream, from Buenos Ayres to Corrientes, irrespective of the frequent risks of a river-navigation, would at least occupy as much time as the sea voyage from England or France.

But, barring those considerations, who, if they got there, would guarantee them against the arbitrary exactions of the petty chiefs in command of those remote and halfcivilized regions, where there is no law but that of the strongest for the time being, and no power within reach to enforce redress for any wrongs they might suffer?*

It is a convenient as well as just provision of the law of nations that restricts the navigation of inland waters to the uses of those to whom the countries bordering upon them belong, and so, amongst other consequences, prevents the continual disputes with "nobody knows who" (to use a homely expression) which would necessarily result from the reverse of the rule, especially in such countries as these.

Nor is it a valid argument of those who adopt a contrary view, that some of the provincial authorities, for their own local interests, may have taken upon themselves to invite and hold out inducements to foreigners to violate the principle in question: the right of such parties to do so without the consent and sanction of all the other members of the Confederation, who have a common interest therein, is a most questionable one, to say the least of it; and although it may possibly, under particular circumstances, enter into the views of some of their immediate neighbours to take advantage of such a state of things, in order to profit by the differences which may temporarily exist amongst the members of the Confederation, as a general rule it can never be desirable for foreign governments at a distance, who are on friendly terms with the Republic, to connect themselves with such proceedings, or with the petty authorities so situated, as long as there is any recognized and responsible power representing as heretofore the body of the Confederated Provinces at Buenos Ayres.

*The first measure of the local authorities, when our merchant vessels reached Corrientes in 1846, was to double the duties upon the export of the native

produce which they had gone up to collect: they might thank the protection of our guns that they got off as well as they did "ex uno disce omnes.”