The majestic river is broad, and in some parts so thickly studded with islands that it appears more like a chain of lakes than a flowing stream. As we proceeded up the river the weather grew warmer, and the native clothing of sheepskins the Russians had used was cast aside. The men, rough and bearded, soon had only their under garments on, and the women wore simply that three-quarter length loose garment well known to all females, yet they sweltered in the unaccustomed heat. At midnight of the third day we landed them at Corrientes, and the women, in their white (?) garments, with their babies and ikons, and bundles--and husbands--trod on terra firma for the first time in seven weeks. After about twelve days' sail we came to Bella Vista, at which point the river is eighteen miles wide. Sixteen days after leaving the mouth of the river, we sighted the red-tiled roofs of the houses at Asuncion, the capital of Paraguay, built on the bank of the river, which is there only a mile wide, but thirty feet deep. The river boats land their passengers at a rickety wooden wharf, and Indians carry the baggage on their heads into the dingy customs house. After this has been inspected by the cigarette-smoking officials, the dark-skinned porters are clamorously eager to again bend themselves under the burden and take your trunks to an hotel, where you follow, walking over the exceedingly rough cobbled streets. There is not a cab for hire in the whole city. The two or three hotels are fifth-rate, but charge only about thirty cents a day. Asuncion is a city of some 30,000 inhabitants Owing to its isolated position, a thousand miles from the sea-coast, it is perhaps the most backward of all the South American capitals. Although under Spanish rule for three hundred years, the natives still retain the old Indian language and the Guarani idiom is spoken by all. The city is lit up at night with small lamps burning oil, and these lights shed fitful gleams here and there. The oil burned bears the high-sounding trade-mark, "Light of the World," and that is the only "light of the world" the native knows of. The lamps are of so little use that females never dream of going out at night without carrying with them a little tin farol, with a tallow dip burning inside. I have said the street lamps give little light. I must make exception of one week of the year, when there is great improvement. That week they are carefully cleaned and trimmed, for it is given up as a feast to the Virgin, and the lights are to shed radiance on gaudy little images of that august lady which are inside of each lamp. The Pal, or father priest, sees that these images are properly honored by the people. He is here as elsewhere, the moving spirit. San Bias is the patron saint of the country, It is said he won for the Paraguayans a great victory in an early war. St. Cristobel receives much homage also because he helped the Virgin Mary to carry the infant Jesus across a river on the way to Egypt.