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THE NATIONAL OFX)OR\PHIC MAGAZINE 



Photograph by William R. Barbour 

 THE RIVERSIDE CUSTOM-HOUSE AT ASUNCION, 

 PARAGUAY, SUGGESTS THE ENTRANCE 

 TO A VENETIAN HOTEL 



Agricultural machinery, fence wire, railway supplies, 

 and coal enter free of duty here. The average time of 

 mail delivery between New York and Asuncion is 37 

 days. A depth of io*4 feet of water is available on the 

 Rio de la Plata, the Parana, and the Paraguay through- 

 out the year, although Asuncion is 1,150 miles inland. 



dividing line, even the plant and animal 

 life differing on its two sides. I was told 

 that a few miles east of the river the 

 country consists of high rolling hills 

 clad with open forests of cedar and other 

 valuable cabinet woods, and with running 

 streams of clear water in the valleys. 



Our destination was Puerto Casado, 

 some three hundred miles north of Asun- 

 cion and only a few miles below the 

 Brazilian frontier. We reached it the 



next noon, leaving our ship to 

 plow on several hundred miles 

 farther, to its final stopping place 

 at Corumba, Brazil, and catching 

 it again on its return trip. 



ONE FAMILY OWNS SEVEN MIL- 

 LION ACRES OE LAND 



Puerto Casado is the site of an 

 old extract plant, small sawmill, 

 and town of employees. The en- 

 tire establishment, with seven mil- 

 lion acres of wild land, extending 

 across the Chaco to the Bolivian 

 frontier, belongs to one Argen- 

 tine famly. 



We were made welcome by the 

 major-domo and his assistants, 

 including a Swiss, a German, an 

 Italian, and a Japanese, all living 

 together in peace and harmony and 

 only too glad to do all they could 

 for their infrequent visitors. They 

 told me I was the first American 

 who had ever visited Puerto Ca- 

 sado. 



To supply the extract plant 

 with quebracho logs, a thirty-inch 

 gauge logging road has been built 

 due west into the jungle. A can- 

 vas-covered railway motor car 

 was put at our disposal, and we 

 made several trips to the end of 

 the line. 



While most of the quebracho 

 had been cut, a dense forest of 

 other trees remained, with an im- 

 penetrable understory of cacti, 

 thorns, and trailing vines. 



Occasionally we passed small 

 open spots, along the edges of 

 which the curious tree called palo 

 b or radio was always conspicu- 

 ous. It has the shape of a long 

 tenpin or round-bellied bottle, 

 with almost white bark studded with great 

 green thorns. The wood is soft and 

 spongy and the trunks are often used by 

 the Indians for dugout canoes, to which 

 purpose the shape lends itself admirably. 

 Its flowers resemble yellow lilies and are 

 followed by pods or bolls of a cottony 

 substance. 



Another common Chaco tree is palo 

 santo, whose aromatic, spicy wood smells 

 like an old-fashioned rose jar. In many 



