298 HJVER NEGRO BANKS. DeC. 



tons was taken, by a wiser master, to Port Melo, and there 

 her carso was discharged into small craft, which landed it 

 safely in the River Negro. Many of these ill-fated vessels were 

 never afterwards heard of ; but from the numerous wrecks seen 

 along the coast between the Colorado and the Negro, it may 

 be inferred that they and their unfortunate crews perished in 

 the surf occasioned by south-east gales, or were capsized by 

 sudden pamperoes. 



Running up the River Negro (on the 7th December), Lieut. 

 Wickham found the 'freshes'* strongly against him. The 

 banks of the river afforded a pleasing contrast, by their ver- 

 dure, to the arid desert around Anegada Bay. Most part of 

 these banks was cultivated, and great quantities of fine corn 

 was seen growing. Here and there were country houses (quin- 

 tas) surrounded by gardens, in which apple, fig, walnut, 

 cherry, quince, and peach trees, vines, and vegetables of most 

 kinds were abundantly plentiful. 



Althouffh the banks of the river are so fit for cultivation, 

 it is only in consequence of floods, which take place twice 

 a-year — once during the rainy season of the interior, and once 

 at the time when the snow melts on the Cordillera. These 

 floods swell the river several feet above its banks, bringing a 

 deposit of mud and decayed vegetable matter, which enriches 

 the soil and keeps it moist even during the long droughts of 

 that climate. 



The plough used there is wooden, and generally worked by 

 oxen, but it does not cut deeply. Manure is never used, the 

 soil being so fattened by alluvial deposits. 



The town of Nuestra Seiiora del Carmen, is about six leagues 

 up the river, on its northern bank, upon a slightly-rising ground 

 about forty feet above the water. It is irregularly built : the 

 houses are small, one only having two stories ; and glass win- 

 dows are seldom seen : each house has a large oven. A square 

 enclosure of some extent, formed by walls of unbaked bricks 

 (adobes), is called the fort, and within it are the church, the 



* Showing that this was the period of one of the two floods to which 

 the Negro is annually subject. 



