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.
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