ROZARIO. 161 



crossed the Saladillo, a stream of fine, clear run- 

 ning water, but too saline to drink. Rozario is a 

 large town, built on a dead level plain, which forms 

 a cliff about sixty feet high over the Parana. The 

 river here is very broad, with many islands, which 

 are low and wooded, as is also the opposite shore. 

 The view would resemble that of a gi'eat lake, if it 

 were not for the linear-shaped islets, which alone 

 give the idea of running water. The clift's are the 

 most picturesque part : sometimes they are abso- 

 lutely pei-jiendicular, and of a red colour ; at other 

 times in large, broken masses, covered with cacti 

 and mimosa-trees. The real grandeur, however, 

 of an immense river like this, is derived from re- 

 flecting how important a means of communication 

 and commerce it forms between one nation and an- 

 other ; to what a distance it travels ; and from how 

 vast a ten'itory it drains the great body of fresh 

 water which flows past your feet. 



For many leagues north and south of San Nicolas 

 and Rozario, the country is really level. Scarcely 

 anything which travellers have written about its 

 extreme flatness can be considered as exaggera- 

 tion. Yet I could never find a spot w^here, by 

 slowly turning round, objects were not seen at 

 greater distances in som.e directions than in others ; 

 and this manifestly proves inequality in the plain 

 At sea, a person's eye being six feet above the sur 

 face of the water, his horizon is two miles and four 

 fifths distant. In like manner, the more level the 

 plain, the more nearly does the horizon approach 

 within these naiTOW limits ; and this, in my opinion, 

 entirely destroys that grandeur which one would 

 have imagined that a vast level plain would have 

 possessed. 



Octohcr 1st. — "VVe started by moonlight, and ar- 

 rived at the Rio Teixero by sunrise. This river is 

 Vol. T— 11 O 2 



