The Paraná River, rising in Goyaz, in Southern Brazil, flows for 1,600 miles to its confluence with the Paraguay, and thence 600 miles to the Plate. Its main branch, the Paranahyba, drains a region but little known on the southern watershed of Brazil; and there are many other tributaries which, although obstructed in places by rapids, may be navigated in canoes, carrying the venturesome traveller into regions wild and remote, amid the rocky valleys and dense forests beyond the Tropic of Capricorn. There are magnificent cascades on these rivers, and dreadful rapids and profound gorges, cut out by the river in the rocks, through which the torrent plunges with frightful velocity, its roar awakening the echoes of the woods and the broken wilderness. By the main stream of the Paraná our steamer, of not more than twelve feet draught, reaches the city of Paraná, and here we are 300 miles above Buenos Ayres. Rosario, which we shall have passed on the voyage upstream, is 185 miles from Buenos Ayres, and may be reached by larger vessels of fifteen feet draught. To proceed now onwards upstream to Asuncion, our steamer must not draw more than ten feet of water, or it will strand on the shallows, but here we are little short of a thousand miles from the Plate, in the very heart of the continent. To reach Asuncion, after five days' steaming up this full-flowing river, we have entered a region of gorgeous forests and beautiful backwaters, the home of the _Victoria regia_ lily and of bright plumaged kingfishers and of the alligator. Away to the west lies the great Chaco plain or desert, and the Pilcomayo River. The elevation of the town is about 250 feet above sea-level, and thus we have ascended to that altitude on the current. To ascend the Pilcomayo River, the western affluent of the Plata, will demand more effort than the easy passage of Paraná. It is a stream tortuous and of great length, but of little volume in comparison with those great streams which irrigate the lands we have described.