EARLY RIVER LIFE 237 



Aires, the ships being linked in convoys. Up stream, 

 Corrientes was the limit ot navigation. The dictator 

 Francis closed tne Paraguay, and even the small boats 

 no longer sailed on the upper Parana, along the frontier 

 of Paraguay. The Coirentinos, who spoke Guarani, 

 could merely get permission at rare intervals to send 

 a few boats up river. Armed boats convoyed these as 

 far as Neembucu, and they returned with hides and 

 mate. Corrientes thus became the market-centre of 

 the upper river and replaced Asuncion in the trade. 

 The flotilla on the Parana included flat-bottomed 

 barges, which were only used in coming down, and 

 strong keeled ships — schooners, sloops and brigs — 

 with their ropes made of leather. Down stream there 

 was a little more diversity in the traffic. The island 

 sent cargoes of firewood and charcoal to Santa Fe 

 and Buenos Aires. The orchards of the delta pro- 

 vided Buenos Aires with oranges and peaches. Hides 

 for export were shipped at Goya and Santa Fe. But 

 the chief freight was lime from La Bajada, which was 

 burned in the kilns on the Barranca, at the outcrops 

 of the beds of conchiferous limestone. 



The navigation was fairly easy, the journey from 

 Corrientes to Buenos Aires (675 miles) lasting, as a 

 rule, from fifteen to twenty days. Going up, the 

 time was more irregular. They had to stop when 

 there was no south wind, or a little progress was made 

 by hauhng {silgar). D'Orbigny took a month to 

 travel up.^ In 1822, before the war with Brazil, 

 there were 651 boats entered at Buenos Aires for 

 coasting trade on the rivers and 1,035 ^^ San Fernando 

 or on the Tigre, the advance port of Buenos Aires. 

 In 1833 Isabelle put at one thousand the number of 

 vessels at work on the Parana and the Uruguay. 



' The local south winds which help the voyage upward below Rosario 

 may be due to the high temperature of the water of the river ; this 

 also gives rise on the lower Paran4 to thick fog of which warning 

 is given. 



