148 FISHES I HAVE KNOWN 



Ayres in the g^alliot 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 



