i/4 To the River Plate and Back 



This appears to be a common cage-bird in Buenos Aires, 

 and many of them were exposed for sale in the markets. 

 The vessel steadily pushed forward hour by hour 

 through the canals and wider reaches of open water. 

 We maintained a speed of from twelve to fourteen 

 knots. At last we came to a region where human activ- 

 ities were less apparent and the plantations of poplars 

 and willows were less frequent. Here and there were 

 tracts still covered with the gray, gnarled trunks of the 

 Erythrina, the native forest-tree of the region, just 

 beginning to put out shoots of green and preparing for 

 the period of blossoms. Tufts of pampas-grass held up 

 the dried feathery plumes of the former year. This 

 plant, familiar to us from our lawns and gardens, is more 

 frequent in the marshes than on the broad dry prairies, 

 which most of us have imagined to be covered by it. It 

 is a plant of the lowlands and swamps. The sun began 

 to sink toward the western horizon. Clouds in long 

 bars stretched across the sky. As the day waned they 

 were lit up with the glory of the sunset. The breezes 

 had died down, the bayous and streams became still 

 and mirror-like. Not a dimple could be seen upon their 

 wide expanses, save here and there where a fish leaped 

 at an insect. The glory of the sunset grew and in- 

 creased, the clouds became purple and crimson and 

 then in the west melted into gold. The waters gave 

 back in brilliant reflections the splendors of the sky. 

 We seemed to be pushing our way forward with the 

 sky above us and the sky below us, the two only parted 

 by the low long fringe of trees on the distant bank, clad 

 in the tender green of the springtime, reflected in darker 

 greeris from the bosom of the wide lake-like waterway 

 through which we were going. At last the sun went 

 down. The night comes quickly in these regions, and 



