Sailing Up The Western Bank Of The River Of Silver, We
Entered The Parana River, And After An Uneventful Voyage Of Six Days,
Passed The Mouth Of The River Of Gold, And Turned Into The Paraguay.
Three hundred miles up the Higher Parana, a mighty stream flowing
from the northeast, which we here left to our right, are the Falls of
Yguasu.
These falls have been seen by few white men. The land on each
side of the river is infested by the Bugres Indians, a tribe of
cannibals, of excessively ferocious nature. The Falls of Big Water
must be the largest in the world - and the writer is well acquainted
with Niagara.
The river, over two and a half miles wide, containing almost as much
water as all the rivers of Europe together, rushes between
perpendicular cliffs. With a current of forty miles an hour, and a
volume of water that cannot be less than a million tons a minute, the
mighty torrent rushes with indescribable fury against a rocky island,
which separates it into two branches, so that the total width is
about two miles and a half. The Brazilian arm of the river forms a
tremendous horseshoe here, and plunges with a deafening roar into the
abyss two hundred and thirteen feet below. The Argentine branch
spreads out in a sort of amphitheatre form, and finishes with one
grand leap into the jagged rocks, more than two hundred and twenty-
nine feet below, making the very earth vibrate, while spray, rising
in columns, is visible several miles distant.
"Below the island the two arms unite and flow on into the Parana
River. From the Brazilian bank the spectator, at a height of two
hundred and eighty feet, gazes out over two and a half miles of some
of the wildest and most fantastic water scenery he can ever hope to
see. Waters stream, seethe, leap, bound, froth and foam, 'throwing
the sweat of their agony high in the air, and, writhing, twisting,
screaming and moaning, bear off to the Parana.' Under the blue vault
of the sky, this sea of foam, of pearls, of iridescent dust, bathes
the great background in a shower of beauty that all the more adds to
the riot of tropical hues already there. When a high wind is blowing,
the roar of the cataract can be heard nearly twenty miles away. A
rough estimate of the horse-power represented by the falls is
fourteen million."
Proceeding up the Paraguay River, we arrived at Asuncion, the capital
of Paraguay, and anchored in a beautiful bay of the river, opposite
the city. As many necessary preparations had still to be made, the
expedition was detained in Asuncion for fifteen days, after which we
boarded the S.S. Leda, for the second stage of our journey.
Steaming up the Alto Paraguay, we passed the orange groves of that
sunny land on the right bank of the river, and on the left saw the
encampments of the Tobas Indians, The dwellings of these people are
only a few branches of trees stuck in the ground.
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