It is a five days’ ride from Rio to Buenos Ayres. From there it is a journey of about six days up the Paraná and Paraguay Rivers to Ascuncion, the capital of the Republic of Paraguay. A two days’ ride above Ascuncion carries one within the borders of Matto Grosso. The Paraguay River, which, up to this point, has been wide, gradually narrows. The scenery becomes wilder, and the river runs between mountains, at the base of which grow giant palms and tree-like ferns. Vines and creepers bind together the tall trees, which stand in a mass of impenetrable vegetation. The only break in this is an occasional farmhouse along the bank. Many kinds of wild birds and some wild animals are seen, alligators abound in the water and fish are plentiful. The jaguar is not uncommon. It is only after several changes of steamers, and a journey of twenty-seven hundred miles by river boats, that one at last reaches the capital of this monstrous province. The Paraguay River is well adapted to navigation. As far as Ascuncion it has a depth of at least twenty feet. For several hundred miles above this city the depth never goes below twelve feet. There are few islands and it is more easy of navigation than the Paraná, which is so much obstructed by shoals and rapids. This fortunate natural outlet will render a cheap and easy transportation for the produce of this state when developed. The northern part of this state drains into the Amazon, and a number of the rivers are navigable almost to the centre of the state. CHAPTER IX THE AMAZON What a prospect of unlimited forest greets the visitor to the Amazon. What a land of dreams and mysteries is unfolded. Three or four hundred miles to the south, and as great a distance to the north, stretches an unbroken forest and jungle, until one reaches the open plateaus of Matto Grosso, on one side, or the boundaries of Venezuela and the Guianas, on the other. To the west there are trees and trees, set close together, and mingling their boughs with the intertwining vines into a vegetable infinity. Much of it is still an unknown land, untrodden by the foot of white man. The tangle has been threaded at different places by exploring expeditions and the rubber gatherers, but to the world it is still an unconversant wilderness. A traveller finds vegetation of one kind on one river, and the same form on another stream a hundred miles away. He then infers that all the intervening territory has the same character, and so reports it. He may be right; and again he may be mistaken.