SAVAGE LIFE IN SOUTH AMERICA. 543 



and tortuous, and both, run in a general southeast direction, pre- 

 serving a remarkable parallelism throughout their course, at a dis- 

 tance of about one hundred and eighty miles. Their depths and 

 general characteristics correspond, and they are frequently ob- 

 structed by narrow argillaceous beds and fallen trees. The waters 

 of both rivers are drinkable, but hard and unsuited for washing. 

 The Bermejo brings down an enormous amount of sediment, which 

 is deposited with such extraordinary rapidity that it must be con- 

 sidered a peculiarly strong feature of the mechanical work of the 

 river, by which its geological formations are made and unmade. 

 This swift precipitation of its detritus, which it replaces by an in- 

 creasing abrasion of the banks, goes on in the Bermejo, even when 

 at its height and when in the exercise of its greatest carrying- 

 power, with a speed equal to the square of its normal current. I 

 have seen this river eat away an entire point of land, and by way 

 of compensation deposit, just a turning below, an amount of de- 

 tritus sufficient to form a similar promontory, which in one season 

 of low water became covered with a thick and luxuriant growth 

 of red willow. The Pilcomayo is to a great extent unknown, and 

 in one section that is quite unknown is invested with a mythical 

 halo in the shape of a tradition that it disappears. An apparent 

 disappearance is a phenomenon which seems to have taken place 

 with some rivers. The upper Paraguay, as I have witnessed, has 

 been known to flow, as if absolutely lost for many miles, beneath 

 a matted covering of living and dead vegetation several feet in 

 depth. In the year 1858 one of these growths, under the influ- 

 ence of an extraordinary inundation, broke loose and drifted two 

 thousand miles, down to Buenos Ayres, where it brought up, with 

 many wild animals and reptiles that had taken refuge there from 

 the almost universal deluge. The Pilcomayo is not affected in 

 this way, and I believe that it not only does not become lost, but 

 that there are no insuperable obstacles to its navigation. At the 

 point where it is supposed to be lost, it begins a very erratic wan- 

 dering — after running a few miles to the southeast, it suddenly 

 turns to the north, leaving several minor branches looking in the 

 opposite direction. It then returns as rapidly to its general south- 

 east course, and, while subject to overflows, the main body of it 

 flows on in a natural bed uninterruptedly to its mouth.* 



* Colonel Church remarked, in the discussion, that the Argentine Republic seemed to be 

 divided into two sections — that of the Pampas, without forest, and that of the Chaco, which 

 was a forest-covered country. Curiously enough, the rains of the Chaco district did not 

 occur during the rainy periods of the Pampas district ; but from November to May there 

 was a veritable downpour, and the country became flooded, filled with lagoons, with here 

 and there an island or small hill. At the head-waters of the Bermejo there was on such 

 occasions a lagoon forty leagues across. It was a very difficult problem to him how the 

 Pilcomayo and the Bermejo could ever be usefully navigated. The former, one hundred 

 and eighty leagues above its mouth, filtered itself through a sandy swamp one hundred 



