The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1899-02-05

as far as Rosario, q distance of three hum
dred miles from Buenos Ayres and about
five hundred miles from the Atlantic, but
above this ships would stick fast in the
mud. AS it is, our steamer, the Saturno.
which was at the time drawing only ten feet
of water, stopped at night again and again
on our way to Asuncion for fear of the sand
banks.
There is no good chart of the Parana
The river often changes its course, and 1t
is always building UP and tearing down bars
and islands within it's channel. The waters
carry so much mud that a snag will form
bar, and a wreck will soon build up an
island. One of the largest islands in the
river near Rosario was started by a sub
merged hay barge, and further up the
stream there are hundreds of islands the
soil of which was gathered about the water
logged trees which have fioated down from
the forests of Paraguay and Brazil.
Put on the thinking cap of your magma
ton and take a trip with me up through
the thousands islands of the Parana. You
many have seen the thousand islands of the
st. Lawrence. They are nothing in COM
parison with the ten thousand islands of
this wonderful river. There are, indeed, so
many islands that they have never been
is great inland sea, so wide in places that
among the islands you cannot see the
banks Some of the islands are covered
with willows. feathery reeds line their
shores and gnarly trees hang down low and
mirror themselves in the water. Others fur
Their up the river are forest grown. Few
are cultivated although it has been said
that there is enough good soil upon them
to raise food for all Europe and on a few
there are cattle and sheep.
Most of the islands are great fields of
grass, and of these some are not fixed but
floating and they glide by our steamer
down the river almost as fast as we steam
on our way up it. These floating islands
are called camelots They are great masses
of grass weeds and flowers which the rush
ing floods have torn from their foundations
and are carrying down to the sea. Some
are so firm that they will support man,
and upon them tigers jaguars and snakes
are often carried to the islands about
Buenos Ayres
THE DELTA OF THE PARANA.
Just after leaving Buenos Ayres we
steamed through the delta of the Parana.
This delta is about twenty miles wide, and
1t extends up the river as far as Rosario, a
distance of 300 miles. 1t is peppered with
Islands, some of which are covered with
forests Of peach trees and others with gar
dens kept by Italians to supply the mar
kets of Buenos Ayres. Many of the houses
are raised upon piles to be out of the way
of the floods and the tides when they carry,
as they sometimes do great waves in from
the ocean.
At the entrance to the Parana we pass
the Island of Martin Gracia, the Gibraltar
of the River Plata, which once belonged to
Uruguay, but which is now the property of
the Argentine Republic. 1t has a naval
school and fort upon it, the batteries of
which are worked by electricity. 1t is one
of the historic points of the Rio de la Plata,
and as we go by it we recall the fact that
this same tour first made by the white
man who was the first to set foot upon the
soil Of the continent of North America Sc
bastian Cabot, in 1926 plowed his way
through the same labyrinth of islands, and
after a long voyage on the Parana reached
the Paraguay and sailed up it to a point
some distance beyond Asuncion.
If Sebastian Cabot could take a trip on
the boats which now sail up the Paraguay
he would think them more wonderful than
anything he met with in his travels His
voyage was made in a sailing boat Ours
is in a comfortable steamer of 500 tons 1t
took him months to sail up the river. We
make the trip in six days. His lights were
tallow dips ours are ineandescent globes
lit by electric dynamos. The Saturno was
built in Glasgow, and it is as comfortable
IS the average passenger steamer of the
great lakes or the Mississippi The cabins
are good and the dining room is like a par
Tor. The fare is not expensive, $50 paying
S. gold per day.
The meals are good, but the Yankee stom-
ach finds it hard to accustom itself to the
times at which they are served. The first
breakfast given on vessels is nothing but
three swallows of coffee and crust of
bread and butter. At II a. m. a real break
fast is served, and at p. m. comes dinner
Sandwiched between luncheon and bedtime
there is tea at p m. and at p. m. The
breakfast at II a. m. and the dinner are
much the same. The breakfast begins with
soup and ends with fruit, cheese and coffee
AS to the dinner-well, here is a sample
dinner bill of fare
OK Tail Soup.
Bologna Sausage with Potato Salad.
Puchero Ghe meat that was cooked to
make the soup)
Fish
Curried Chicken and Rice
Beefsteak and Potatoes
Cheese. Guava Jelly.
English Walnuts, Almonds and Raisins.
Oranges Black Coffee.
The meals are much alike but we always
have a variety as great as that above sta :
ed Two kinds of wine are served with
breakfast and dinner without extra charge.
Dinner is the chief event Of the day. The
passengers all dress for it, The men put
on their black clothes and most of the wo-
men wear evening dresses.
QUEER INCONSISTENCIES.
There is better form in dressing among
| the passengers than in manners. Some of
the men who wear kid gloves all day and
who put on black coats for dinner eat with
their knives and tuck their napkins in at
the collar as though they were babies and
| needed bibs. The toothpick is universally
used between the courses. The men smoke
cigarettes through the meals and with their
coffee, and noticed that one or two appar-
emily very elegant ladies made no bones of
expectorating on the floor between their
bites. One old Argentine papa, who has two
pretty knife-eating daughters, drinks his
soft-boiled eggs out of a glass. He also pol
ishes his plate with his napkin at every
course. But l don't blame him for that,