330 



TOPOGRAPHY. 



through which they pass, their windings, confluences, and 

 the places where they discharge themselves, not having been 

 well ascertained. Don Fernandez Cornejo, a colonel of mi- 

 litia resident in the city of Salta, one of those true and zealous 

 patriots who do honour to the nation and to the age, pro- 

 je6ted a fluviatic voyage, to be undertaken at his own expence, 

 with a view to ascertain whether the Bermejo is navigable 

 from the province of Tucuman to the spot where it empties 

 itself into the Parahuay. Ignorance, envy, calumny, and 

 treachery, those malignant geniuses which take a barbarous 

 delight in opposing and throwing obstacles in the way of great 

 enterprizes, made their utmost efforts to defeat the execution 

 of this one. Their aim was, however, frustrated ; since its 

 author obtained, for the accomplishment of his purpose, a 

 powerful and extraordinary aid, such as is without any ex- 

 ample in the history of the two Americas. Donna Josefa Me- 

 ono, the lady of Don Nicolas de Arredondo, viceroy of Bue- 

 nos-Ayres, took under her protection both the proje6l and the 

 consequences which might result from it. Cornejo, sheltered 

 and encouraged by this distinguished patronage, imposed si- 

 lence on his enemies, overcame every obstacle, and com- 

 menced his expedition on the 27th day of June, 1790. The 

 place from which he took his departure is a small haven or 

 bay, formed by the river Bermejo at its confluence with the 

 Centa. He embarked on board a kind of xebeck, with a crew 

 of twenty-six persons, partly soldiers and partly seamen, dis- 

 tributed in his vessel, and in the two canoes which followed 

 and composed the armament. After a navigation of forty-four 

 days, he reached the spot where the Bermejo disembogues itself 

 into the Paraguay, twenty-four leagues to the north of the city of 



las- 



