"When the repairs to the engines were completed a gun was fired by the steamer, and we galloped back to the landing. We steamed on until late in the evening, passing alternate stretches of forest and open ground, and on two or three occasions feeling the sand-bars with our keel. This mode of sounding was not to the liking of the captain and pilot, and so we anchored until morning. "For the first two hundred miles of its course as we ascend it the Parana is a labyrinth of islands and channels; they are so numerous as to bewilder the novice, and even the old pilots say they are often perplexed by the multiplicity of ways open to them. The islands are covered with fruit trees, from which the markets of Buenos Ayres and Montevideo are supplied, and they overhang the water so that in some places a boat may be loaded without its occupant stepping on shore. The forests are gay with flowers in bloom, the air is filled with fragrance, little pools and nooks in the islands are covered with aquatic plants, and the luxuriance of vegetation is so great that we were continually reminded of the lower Amazon. "If only the mosquitoes had let us alone we should have found the journey one of the most interesting we have ever made. "The country is rapidly filling up with inhabitants, who come from all parts of Europe, as already mentioned, but there is yet an immense area that awaits settlement. We ask for the Indians, but have difficulty in finding them; at various times they have had quarrels with the settlers, but soon found it was better to remain on terms of peace. As the country has been occupied with farms and cattle-ranches, they have found a scarcity of game which has led them to retire into the interior. They are rarely seen on the lower part of the river, except where they have hired out as herdsmen to the owners of the cattle estates, the only kind of labor they are willing to engage in. [Illustration: COSTUMES OF PARAGUAY.] "But as we go on we find the river narrower, its banks higher, and the islands less numerous. Two hundred miles from the mouth of the Parana proper, and four hundred from the ocean, we came to Rosario, and remained several hours. The city surprised us by its extent and attractive features. In 1854 it was a wretched town with a few hundred huts, and perhaps three thousand inhabitants; now its population numbers fifty thousand, and it is next to Buenos Ayres in commercial importance. It is a port of entry for ships of all nations.