414 



THE NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC MAGAZINE 



Photograph by William R. Barbour 



THE SON OP A PARAGUAYAN GAUCHO 



Like his father, he is an adept at handling 

 the flat-thonged r evened, the native whip, 

 whose sharp voice is worse than its stroke. 



mysterious Lake Ibera (Gran Laguna del 

 Ibera), a great unexplored body of water 

 in the interior of the province of Cor- 

 rientes. The lonely recesses of this lake 

 are rendered inaccessible by the floating 

 vegetation, which covers the water and is 

 said to form floating islands on which 

 live tribes of Indians. All sorts of myths 



are current regarding the region and few 

 inhabitants of the province are bold 

 enough to enter it. It is a traditional 

 haunt of evil Spirits in the form of In- 

 dians whose feet have heels both before 

 and behind! The Argentine Government 

 is planning to have the lake explored by 

 airplane. 



During the second afternoon palms be- 

 came more numerous and the forests still 

 more tropical in aspect. ( )ne tall tree, 

 with dense foliage and pale, almost white, 

 bark was the tola, a cousin of our Amer- 

 ican hackberry. There were also many 

 cciba trees covered with orange-pink blos- 

 soms. 



PASSING THE: VAST, UNEXPLORED CIIACO 



By the third morning the territory of 

 the Chaco lay to the west of us, its largely 

 unexplored swamps and jungles covering 

 an area of at least 200,000 square miles, in 

 northern Argentina, western Paraguay, 

 and southeastern Bolivia. ^ r ere it not 

 the home of the quebracho, that tree which 

 is so important a source of tannin, the 

 region would be even less known than 

 it is. 



In the forenoon we reached Corrientes, 

 capital of the province of the same name. 

 It is a typically Spanish-looking, sleepy old 

 place, with its one-storied whitewashed 

 brick homes showing only blank walls to 

 the narrow, filthy, roughly cobbled streets. 



Immediately above the city the river is 

 very wide, but, thanks to high water, we 

 were able to stay close to the west shore, 

 behind a string of islands. Fresh-water 

 gulls, small cranes, and large, dull-blue 

 kingfishers vied for interest with the 

 alligators basking on the sunny banks. 



Soon we reached the confluence of the 

 Parana and Paraguay rivers, and con- 

 tinued up the latter. The "Alto Parana," 

 as it is called above the junction, comes 

 in from the east and is a much larger 

 river than the Paraguay, but less im- 

 portant, as it is shallow and hard to navi- 

 gate and flows through a region which as 

 yet has been little exploited. It forms 

 the boundary between eastern Paraguay 

 and Argentina as far as the Brazilian 

 frontier, near which point is the famous 

 Iguazu cataract, higher and wider than 

 Niagara. To reach Iguazu, one trans- 

 fers at Corrientes to a smaller steamer, 



