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. So startlingly grand were some of the colors that our
artist more than once said he dare not paint them, as the world would
think that his coloring was not true to nature.
Many were the strange sights we saw on the shore. Once we were amused
at the ludicrous spectacle of a large bird of the stork family, which
had built its nest in a tree almost overhanging the river. The nest
was a collection of reeds and feathers, having two holes in the
bottom, through which the legs of the bird were hanging. The feet,
suspended quite a yard below the nest, made one wonder how the bird
could rise from its sitting position.
Every sight the traveller sees, however, is not so amusing. As
darkness creeps over earth and sky, and the pale moonbeams shed a
fitful light, it is most pathetic to see on the shore the dead trunk
and limbs of a tree, in the branches of which has been constructed a
rude platform, on which some dark-minded Indian has reverently lifted
the dead body of his comrade. The night wind, stirring the dry bones
and whistling through the empty skull, makes weird music!
The banks of the stream had gradually come nearer and nearer to us,
and the great river, stretching one hundred and fifty miles in width
where it pours its volume of millions of tons of water into the sea
at Montevideo, was here a silver ribbon, not half a mile across.
Far be it from me to convey the idea that life in those latitudes is
Eden. The mosquitos and other insects almost drive one mad. The
country may truly be called a naturalists' paradise, for butterflies,
beetles, and creeping things are multitudinous, but the climate, with
its damp, sickly heat, is wholly unsuited to the Anglo-Saxon. Day
after day the sun in all his remorseless strength blazes upon the
earth, is if desirous of setting the whole world on fire. The
thermometer in the shade registered 110, 112 and 114 degrees
Fahrenheit, and on one or two memorable days 118 degrees. The heat in
our little saloon at times rose as high as 130 degrees, and the
perspiration poured down in streams on our almost naked bodies.
