6o Through the Brazilian Wilderness 



and stilts, skimmers, and clouds of beautiful swaying 

 terns in the foreground. About noon we passed the 

 highest point which the old Spanish conquistadores and 

 explorers, Irala and Ayolas, had reached in the course 

 of their marvellous journeys in the first half of the 

 sixteenth century — ^at a time when there was not a set- 

 tlement in what is now the United States, and when 

 hardly a single English sea captain had ventured so 

 much as to cross the Atlantic. 



By the following day the country on the east bank 

 had become a vast marshy plain dotted here and there 

 by tree-clad patches of higher land. The morning was 

 rainy; a contrast to the fine weather we had hitherto 

 encountered. We passed wood-yards and cattle-ranches. 

 At one of the latter the owner, an Argentine of Irish 

 parentage, who still spoke English with the accent of 

 the land of his parents' nativity, remarked that this was 

 the first time the American flag had been seen on the 

 upper Paraguay ; for our gunboat carried it at the mast- 

 head. Early in the afternoon, having reached the part 

 where both banks of the river were Brazilian territory, 

 we came to the old colonial Portuguese fort of Coimbra. 

 It stands where two steep hills rise, one on either side 

 of the river, and it guards the water-gorge between them. 

 It was captured by the Paraguayans in the war of nearly 

 half a century ago. Some modem guns have been 

 mounted, and there is a garrison of Brazilian troops. 

 The white fort is perched on the hillside, where it clings 

 and rises, terrace above terrace, with bastion and para- 

 pet and crenellated wall. At the foot of the hill, on the 

 riverine plain, stretches the old-time village with its roofs 



