BUENOS AIRES AND ITS RIVER OF SILVER 



42" 



Photograph by William R. Barbour 



WHEN THE STEAMER ARRIVES AT FORMOSA, ON THE PARAGUAY, THE WHOLE TOWN 



TURNS OUT 



The large white "M" on the funnels of most of Argentina's river steamers stands for 

 romance. Nicolas Mihanovich, a poor lad from Austria, began his career in Buenos Aires 

 40 years ago by carrying passengers from shore to steamer and back, as did Cornelius 

 Vanderbilt from Staten Island to Manhattan. When he died recently, he owned some 250 

 steamers operating on the Rio de la Plata (River of Silver) and its tributaries. 



fishing for pacil and annado one uses a 

 half orange for bait. 



About sunset, when the heat of the day 

 had worn off, the river was beautiful. 

 As our ship slipped quietly around the 

 great bends, whose low snores, usually 

 wooded, sometimes revealed a palm- 

 dotted plain or lonely native hut in a 

 grove of bananas, we took great delight 

 in watching the bird life. There were 

 numberless ducks and gulls, white-headed 

 black cormorants, which the natives 

 called mbi-gua, and many specimens of 

 the great gray heron, garza mora, a cousin 

 of the dainty white garza blanca, which 

 has been hunted for its aigrette plumes 

 till it is nearly extinct. 



The next morning we reached the 

 Tropic of Capricorn and stopped at the 

 old town of Concepcion. It was intensely 

 hot, but a few of us went ashore to the 

 Hotel Frances, a neat little hostelry run 

 by a French couple. Their patio was as 

 pretty and restful a place as one could 

 ask for, with an old-fashioned well under 

 a blooming flamboyant e tree and beauti- 

 ful flowering shrubs and plants in pots 



and tubs. Just above Concepcion are an 

 American-owned quebracho extract plant 

 and a meat-canning factory, whose em- 

 ployees maintain an American club in the 

 town. 



For a few miles above Concepcion the 

 river is dangerous, with shallow, rocky 

 bottom and treacherous, twisting cur- 

 rents. We went through at half speed, 

 the leadsmen continually trying the depth. 

 Constantly on this trip I was reminded 

 of Mark Twain's "Life on the Missis- 

 sippi." 



By morning we had passed Puerto 

 Pinasco and San Salvador, and the coun- 

 try had changed in character. Low. 

 wooded, limestone hills appeared on the 

 right and high cliffs and grottos. To the 

 left, the Chaco swamps remained as be- 

 fore. 



The geology of this section is interest- 

 ing. The Chaco was once a shallow in- 

 land sea, with its eastern border about 

 where the river now flows. This sea 

 eventually dried up, leaving vast swamps, 

 with a salty or alkaline grayish sandy soil 

 devoid of rocks. The river is today the 



