Immediately opposite Parana, on the other side of the river, which in this part is very wide, is the city of Santa Fe, the point of export for all the region occupied by the foreign agricultural colonies of the confederation--to wit, the Swiss, Piedmontese, Germans and Belgians. The chief industry in which these colonists are engaged is the cultivation of wheat, of which enormous quantities are raised and converted into flour on the spot, as there are several steam flour-mills in the district. The flour is shipped from Santa Fe and sold in Rosario or Buenos Ayres. These colonists number about thirteen thousand. Santa Fe is a remarkably indolent town--the most indolent in the world, says M. Forgues. Its chief features are its great plaza, its church and the palace of the governor of Gran Chaco. Back of the country occupied by the colonists begins the land of the Chaco Indians. They enjoy the reputation of being savages, but as an example of the delicate line of demarkation in La Plata between the extreme of civilization and the extreme of savage life our traveler relates that riding thirty leagues to visit a tribe of wild Indians, he found the chief with a _poncho_ of Manchester manufacture on his shoulders, a pair of gaiters from Latour, Rue Montorgueil, Paris, on his feet, and a hospitable glass of Hamburg gin in his hand. [Illustration: VIEW OF PARANA FROM THE RIVER.] Leaving Parana, the steamer passes, at a short distance above the city, the _saladero_ of Messrs. Carbo y Carril, a picturesque spot situated on a cliff. From this point a fine view is obtained of Parana in the distance, stretching along its high barranca, with its white houses and belfries in bold relief against the blue sky, and borrowing from the elevation on which it stands a delusively majestic aspect. As the Republica ascends the river the cliffs continue to be the prevailing feature of the shore-scenery. A Brazilian passenger steamer, one of a line of steamers which ply between Cuyaba in the Brazilian province of Matto Grosso and Montevideo, is met descending the stream. This line, established by the government of Brazil to maintain communication between its central South American possessions and the large cities of the coast, receives an imperial subsidy of nine thousand francs a month. A _saladero_ is passed, and then a village. The river is thick with trees with twisted roots and short branches, floating downward to the ocean. Then the appearance of the banks changes: the cliffs gradually slope to a level with the river, and vegetation begins to line the shore, first in the shape of bushes, next of undergrowth, and finally of lofty forest trees, some of them dead, and with a wall of tangled foliage overhead.