BUEXOS AIRES AND ITS RIVER OF SILVER 



for grain and flaxseed. It is lo- 

 cated on high clay bluffs west of 

 the river along whose banks there 

 lie huge grain warehouses and ele- 

 vators which cut off our view of 

 the city proper, with its 250,000 

 people, a large part of whom are 

 Italians. The water beside the 

 Rosario docks is deep enough for 

 ocean freighters, and the city 

 serves as port of outlet for a 

 great agricultural section. 



In the afternoon we came to 

 Diamante, lying east of the Pa- 

 rana, in the rich province of En- 

 tre Rios. Here also there are 

 warehouses close to the river, but 

 most of the town lies farther 

 back, above sixty- foot terraced 

 clay cliffs. All this part of the 

 river has alternate marshes and 

 crumbling high clay banks. 



About sunset, imposing white 

 stuccoed church towers came into 

 sight ahead, and rounding a great 

 bend we came to Parana, capital 

 of the province of Entre Rios. It 

 is a town upward of 50,000 peo- 

 ple, and exports large amounts of 

 hides and cereals ; its wharves are equipped 

 with traveling cranes and backed by 

 solidly built concrete warehouses. 



A wonderfully clear and balmy moon- 

 light night followed. The river slipped 

 quietly by, its ripples reflecting the wink- 

 ing lights of buoys which the Argentine 

 Government has recently established as 

 far as Corrientes. 



FLOATING ISLANDS HARBOR HORDES OF 

 SNAKES 



When day came the character of the 

 country had changed. On each side 

 stretched endless reaches of low, partially 

 inundated country, densely wooded with 

 strange tropical trees, interspersed with 

 an occasional "feather-duster" palm. The 

 wide flood was dotted with islands, large 

 and small, among which the buoyed chan- 

 nel meandered. Camalotcs, which the 

 Spanish dictionary defines as "river plants 

 in South America resembling a floating 

 island," began to drift by. Usually only 

 a few would be joined together, but oc- 

 casionally our boat would swing abruptly 

 aside to avoid patches which had collected 



Photograph by Newton W. Gulick 



The balloon-man in buenos aires 



He runs as fast as he can through the principal busi- 

 ness streets with his inflated wares. On each balloon is 

 the name of the largest retail dry-goods establishment 

 of the city. He sells his balloons and at the same time 

 advertises his employers. 



about some floating uprooted tree to form 

 islands fifty feet across. 



These camalotcs make their appearance 

 in times of high water, being carried out 

 into the current from the adjacent swamps. 

 They always harbor many snakes. In 

 1905 a great flood brought so many of 

 these "islands" down the river that they 

 stranded on the banks near Buenos Aires 

 and thus constituted a public menace. 

 Thousands of snakes, with an occasional 

 wild boar or other animal which had be- 

 come marooned, went ashore into the 

 thickets between Palermo Park and the 

 river, and a large force of policemen 

 armed with machetes had to be put to 

 work killing them. 



A LAKE OE MYTHS AND LEGENDS 



Just before noon we anchored offshore 

 opposite the mouth of the Rio Corrientes, 

 which flows in from the east, while a 

 small tug delivered a few passengers from 

 the small town of Esquina, whose orange 

 groves and bright green fields showed in 

 the middle distance. 



The Rio Corrientes helps to drain the 



