Rising In Bolivia, Its Course Can Be Traced Down For Some Considerable Distance, When It Loses Itself In The Arid Wastes, Or, As Some Maintain, Flows Underground.

Its source and mouth are known, but for many miles of its passage it is invisible.

Numerous attempts to solve its secrets have been made. They have almost invariably ended disastrously. The Spanish traveller, Ibarete, set out with high hopes to travel along its banks, but he and seventeen men perished in the attempt. Two half- famished, prematurely-old, broken men were all that returned from the unknown wilds. The Pilcomayo, which has proved itself the river of death to so many brave men, remains to this day unexplored. The Indians inhabiting these regions are savage in the extreme, and the French explorer, Creveaux, found them inhuman enough to leave him and most of his party to die of hunger. The Tobas and the Angaitaes tribes are personally known to me, and I speak from experience when I say that more cruel men I have never met. The Argentine Government, after twenty years of warfare with them, was compelled, in 1900, to withdraw the troops from their outposts and leave the savages in undisputed possession. If the following was the type of civilization offered them, then they are better left to themselves: "Two hundred Indians who have been made prisoners are compelled to be baptized. The ceremony takes place in the presence of the Governor and officials of the district, and a great crowd of spectators. The Indians kneel between two rows of soldiers, an officer with drawn sword compels each in turn to open his mouth, into which a second officer throws a handful of salt, amid general laughter at the wry faces of the Indians. Then a Franciscan padre comes with a pail of water and besprinkles the prisoners. They are then commanded to rise, and each receives a piece of paper inscribed with his new name, a scapulary, and - a glass of rum" [Footnote: Report of British and Foreign Bible Society, 1900.] What countries these for missionary enterprise!

After sailing for eighteen days up the river, we transhipped into a smaller steamer going to Bolivia. Sailing up the bay, you pass, on the south shore, a small Brazilian customs house, which consists of a square roof of zinc, without walls, supported on four posts, standing about two meters from the ground. A Brazilian, clothed only in his black skin, came down the house ladder and stared at us as we passed. The compliment was returned, although we had become somewhat accustomed to that style of dress - or undress. A little farther up the bay, a white stone shone out in the sunlight, marking the Bolivian boundary, and giving the name of Piedra Blanca to the village. This landmark is shaded by a giant tamarind tree, and numerous barrel trees, or palo boracho, grow in the vicinity. In my many wanderings in tropical America, I have seen numerous strange trees, but these are extraordinarily so. The trunk comes out of the ground with a small circumference, then gradually widens out to the proportions of an enormous barrel, and at the top closes up to the two-foot circumference again. Two branches, like giant arms spread themselves out in a most weird-looking manner on the top of all. About five leaves grow on each bough, and, instinctively, you consider them the fingers of the arms.

It was only three leagues to the Bolivian town of Piedra Blanca, but the "Bahia do Marengo" took three hours to steam the short distance, for five times we had to stop on the way, owing to the bearings becoming heated. These the Brazilian engineer cooled with pails of water.

In the beautiful Bay of Caceres, much of which was grown over with lotus and Victoria Regia, we finally anchored. This Bolivian village is about eighteen days' sail up the river from Montevideo on the seacoast.

Chartering the "General Pando," a steamer of 25 h.p. and 70 ft. long, we there completed our preparations, and finally steamed away up the Alto Paraguay, proudly flying the Bolivian flag of red, yellow, and green. As a correct plan of the river had to be drawn, the steamer only travelled by day, when we were able to admire the grandeur of the scenery, which daily grew wilder as the mountains vied with each other in lifting their rugged peaks toward heaven. From time to time we passed one of the numerous islands the Paraguay is noted for. These are clothed with such luxuriant vegetation that nothing less than an army of men with axes could penetrate them. The land is one great, wild, untidy, luxuriant hot-house, "built by nature for herself." The puma, jaguar and wildcat are here at home, besides the anaconda and boa constrictor, which grow to enormous lengths. The Yaci Reta, or Island of the Moon, is the ideal haunt of the jaguar, and as we passed it a pair of those royal beasts were playing on the shore like two enormous cats. As they caught sight of us, one leapt into the mangrove swamp, out of sight, and the other took a plunge into the river, only to rise a few yards distant and receive an explosive bullet in his head. The mangrove tree, with its twisting limbs and bright green foliage, grows in the warm water and fotid mud of tropical countries. It is a type of death, for pestilence hangs round it like a cloud. At early morning this cloud is a very visible one. The peculiarity of the tree is that its hanging branches themselves take root, and, nourished by such putrid exhalations, it quickly spreads.

There were also many floating islands of fantastic shape, on which birds rested in graceful pose. We saw the garza blanca, the aigrets of which are esteemed by royalty and commoner alike, along with other birds new and strange. To several on board who had looked for years on nothing but the flat Argentine pampas, this change of scenery was most exhilarating, and when one morning the sun rose behind the "Golden Mountains," and illuminated peak after peak, the effect was glorious.

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