158 RIO PARANA. Oct. 1833. 



General Beatson in his account of the island of St. Helena, 

 has remarked that variations in climate sometimes appear to 

 be the effect of the operation of some very general cause. 

 He says (page 43), "The severe drought felt here in 1791 

 and 1792, was far more calamitous in India. Doctor 

 Anderson states, in a letter to Colonel Kyd, dated the 9th 

 of August, 1792, that, owing to a failure of rain, during the 

 above two years, one half of the inhabitants in the northern 

 provinces had perished by famine ; and the remainder were 

 so feeble and weak, that on the report of rice coming from 

 the Malabar coast, 5000 poor people left Rajamundy, and 

 very few of them reached the sea-side, although the distance 

 is only 50 miles. It appears by Mr. Bryan Edwards's 

 History of the West Indies, that the seasons 1791-2 

 were unusually dry at the island of Montserrat.'' Barrow* 

 in the latter part of 1792, when at the Cape de Verd islands 

 says, " In fact a drought of three j-ears' continuance, and con- 

 sequent famine for almost the same period, had nearly deso- 

 lated the island." 



October 12th. — I had intended to have pushed my 

 excursion further, but not being quite well, I was compelled 

 to return by a balandra, or one-masted vessel of about a 

 hundred tons burden, which was bound to Buenos Ayres. 

 As the weather was not fair, we moored early in the day to 

 a branch of a tree on one of the islands. The Parana is full 

 of islands, which undergo a constant round of decay and re- 

 novation. In the memory of the master several large ones had 

 disappeared, and others again had been formed and protected 

 by vegetation. They are composed of muddy sand, with- 

 out even the smallest pebble, and were then about four 

 feet above the level of the river ; but during the periodical 

 floods they are inundated. They all present one character ; 

 numerous willows and a few other trees are bound together by 

 a great variety of creeping plants, thus forming a thick jungle. 

 These thickets afford a retreat for carpinchos and jaguars. 



* Voyage to Codiin China, p. 67. 



