TOPOGEAPHY OF AEGENTINA. 



423 



Corrientes was founded in 1588 on a bluff rising 25 or 26 feet above the 

 average level of the river, and although distant 820 miles from Buenos Ayres, 

 it is accessible at all times to craft drawing 10 feet and, for six months in the 

 year, to vessels of 13 or 14 feet. It is the chief station for the steamers plying 

 on the Parana and the Paraguay, which have here their building and repairing 

 docks. During the Paraguay war it was the headquarters of the allies after the 



Fig. 166. — COEEIENTES AND THE GrEAT CONFLUENCE. 

 Scale 1 ; 800,000. 



WestoF LTeenw'ich 



58'30' 



] 2 Miles. 



fierce naval battle of Riachuelo had delivered it into their hands. Its railway 

 communications with the southern provinces are still incomplete, and during the 

 rainy season it is separated by a zone of lakes and morasses from Caati, the chief 

 agricultural market of the interior. Facing Corrientes on the right bank of the 

 Parana stands the village of San Fernando, which occupies the site of an old 

 camping-ground of civilised Guaycurus and Tobas. At first these Indians regularly 



