148 FISHES I HAVE KNOWN 



Ayres in the galliot after she had loaded up with 

 tallow, hides, and horns, and we were becalmed 

 close to one of the mouths of the Parana just 

 off a saladero, or cattle-slaughtering place, the 

 drainage from which was not of the purest. 

 We fished for smelts and caught a good many, 

 the foulness of the water suiting their not over- 

 fastidious taste. But the River Plate smelt a 

 true Osmerus eperlanus, olive-green above, silver- 

 white below, with a silver longitudinal and lateral 

 band along the body, and charmingly translucent, 

 is not the little fish served up in England, 

 deliciously fried in breadcrumbs, with sauce 

 Tartare or Hollandaise, or posing as a garnish 

 to a boiled turbot, but is a giant, twenty inches 

 long and three pounds in weight. 



Leaving the River Plate for good and all, I 

 booked a passage and sailed by the Royal Mail 

 steamer to Rio. En route> she .slowed down off 

 the mouth of the River San Francisco to pick up 

 a jangada or native raft-canoe, one of several 

 employed by the Government as dispatch boats 

 to outlying parts along the Brazilian coast, and 

 I had a capital opportunity of closely examining 

 a specimen of these singular crafts. 



She was literally picked up, hoisted by the 

 steam-winch, and deposited on the deck like a 



