TOPOGRAPHY. 



331 



las-Corrlentes, having performed a distance of three hundred 

 and eighty-two leagues without encountering the smallest ob- 

 stacle. 



When a more perfe£l knowledge of this navigation shall 

 have been pra6lically acquired, a saving may be made of 

 nearly the one half of the time occupied by the present attempt, 

 which must necessarily have been attended by a variety of short 

 delays, although there was neither impediment nor risk in any 

 part of the passage*. In the interim, this discovery affords 

 great advantages to the commercial intercourse of Paraguay 

 with the provinces of Tucuman and Peru, the produ6lions 

 having been hitherto transported on the back of mules, with 

 great delays, and at a heavy expence. 



If our Mercury should have the good fortune to find access 

 among the cultivated nations of Europe, and should survive 

 the lapse of the present age, it will be proud to have trans- 

 mitted to the world, and to posterity, the name and elevated 

 conceptions of the illustrious prote6tress of this undertaking. 

 To an august female America was first indebted for her ex- 

 ploration : to another, not of so elevated a rank, but equally 



* To be more fully persuaded, that, in prafllsing this navigation, not any em- 

 barrassment is to be found, the map of the missions, published by father Joseph 

 Quiroga, in 1 749, may be consulted. It should be observed, that the river of las 

 Conchas, the port at which the merchandizes sent from Paraguay to Buenos-Ayres 

 arrive, is distant from that city five or six leagues ; and that, from the spot where 

 the river Bermejo empties itself into the Paraguay, there is but an inconsiderable 

 distance to the city of Assumption, the capital of the province. 



•f- Queen Isabel. 



u u 2 bene- 



