In so many and such long JOURNEYS, I practised this sort of navigation almost daily, and not unfrequently repeated it often on the same day. At first it appeared very formidable and dangerous to me. But instructed by frequent practice, I have often laughed at myself and my imaginary danger, and always preferred a hide in crossing a river, to a tottering skiff or boat, which is constantly liable to be overturned. If many days' rain has wetted the hide, and made it as soft as linen, boughs of trees are placed under the four sides, and the bottom of the pelota, which supports the hide, and strengthens it to cross the river in safety. American captains of Spanish soldiers will not swim, although they know how, that they may not be obliged to strip before their men. To reach, therefore, the opposite shore, they sit upon a pelota, which, scorning the assistance of another person, they impel forwards by two forked boughs for oars. The Abipones enter even the larger rivers on horseback: but when the ford begins to fail, they leap from their horse into the water. With their right hand they hold the reins of the horse, and row with the same; in their left they grasp a very wide spear, at the end of which they suspend their clothes in the air, that they may not be wetted. Every now and then they give the horse a blow, if he suffers himself to be carried down with the stream, to bring him back to the right course, and make him strain to the appointed part of the opposite shore, which should be neither marshy nor weedy, nor of a very high bank, so that it may afford an easy ascent. It was laughable to see the crowds of savages swimming at my side, with nothing but their heads above water, yet conversing as pleasantly as others would on the green turf. How often have I crossed those tremendous rivers sitting on a hide in the midst of them! You would have called them so many Neptunes, so familiar were they with the water. Their boldness exceeds the belief of Europeans. Whenever they had a mind to go from St. Ferdinand to Corrientes, they swam across that vast sea, which is composed of the united streams of the great Paraguay and the great Parana, with their horses swimming beside them, to the great astonishment of the Spaniards: for in this part the river is formidable to ships even, from its width, depth, and incredible rapidity, and often filled myself and my companions with terror when we sailed upon it, whilst I resided in that colony. Formerly those savage plunderers, whenever they hastened home with a great number of beasts taken from the Spaniards, prudently crossed this immense river towards the South, going from island to island; by which means they had time to recruit themselves and their beasts, after the fatigue of swimming, in each of the islands. It will be worth while to describe the manner in which many thousands of horses, mules, and oxen, are sent across great rivers to the opposite shore. The herd of beasts is not all driven by