Evening star., 1899-02-04

interior traffic of the South American con-
tnent is enormous.
There are two lines of steamers which
have weekly service between Buenos
AyreS anc ASunciOn, so that you can take
a ffio for any of the ports twice a week.
There are steamers also which go regular
ly every day or up the Uruguay for a
distance of 800 miles, and twice a month
a Brazilian steamer leaves for the province
of Matte Crosse far in the interior of Bra
I'll These ships carry you to Corumba,
where you change to a smaller steamer,
and in twenty days from the time of leav-
ing Buenos Ayres reach Cuyaba, the cap
ital of Matto Crosse, 2..a4 miles from
Buenos Ayres and 2 700 miles from the At
lantic. The Parana Is navigable by steam
for more than 1000 miles. and We're it not
Tor strip of falls and rapids along the east
ern edge of southern Paraguay, ii could be
navigated for many hundreds of miles fur
ther.
Not an Ocean Highway.
The boats going up these rivers must
all draw not more than ten feet. and those
to the upper ports cannot have more than
from five to nine feet. Even then they are
liable to be grounded in the sand by low
water You frequently see statements that
ocean steamers can go by the Parana far
into the interior of South America. This
is not true Steamers of sixteen feet can
go up the river as far as Rosario. a dis
about 800 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 it's course, and 1T
Is always building up and tearing down
bars and islands within its channel The
much q will
form a bar, ana a wreck will soon build
up an island. One of the largest islands
IN the river near Rosario was started by a
submerged hay barge and further up the
stream there are hundreds of islands the
SOIL of which has gathered about the water
logged trees which have loated down from
the forests of Paraguay and Brazil.
Ten Thousand Islands.
Put on the thinking cap of your imagina-
ton ana take a trip with me up through
the thousand islands of the Parana. You
may 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
counted. The river for hundreds of miles
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
mirror themselves in the water. Others
further up the river are forest grown Few
are cultivated although it has been said
that there is enough good soil upOn them
II 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 hv 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 mass
es of grass weeds, and flowers which the
rushing food have torn from their founda-
tiCns and are carrying down to the sea.
Some are so firm that they will support a
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
it 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
gardens kept by Italians to supply the mar
kets of Bucnos Ayres. Many of the houses
of the floods and the tides when they
carry, as they sometimes 10, great waves
in from the ocean.
At the entrance to the Parana we pass
the Island Of Martin Graca. 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 hy electricity. 1t is one