338 



NOTES ON BRAZIL. 



progress of boats, and at one time we were completely aground, three 

 or four hundred yards from a larger vessel. We were striving to make 

 the people hear, in order to learn from them the best way into deeper 

 water, when we saw two men throw themselves overboard, who, partly 

 by swimming and partly by wading, made their way to us, and strenu- 

 ously assisted to push us off the bank. One of them was a Negro, the 

 other a Mestizo, the offspring of a Portuguese and an Indian, the 

 strongest-built man that I ever beheld. Both appeared perfectly at ease 

 in the water, swam in their trowsers, and carried in the waistband a 

 pointed knife. The varas or sprits, used in pushing the boat forward, 

 sunk about twelve feet in black mud, before they bore the necessary 

 pressure, evidently marking the depth to which it continued unconso- 

 lidated, and without any great admixture of sand. 



The Iguazu is a fine, broad, and deep river, flowing in a very 

 crooked channel. In the common state of the atmosphere, the current 

 is strong ; in the rainy season it flows with impetuosity, and widely 

 breaks its bounds. On both sides its banks are covered with tall aquatic 

 plants, whose juices serve further to discolour a stream, which has been 

 dingy from its sources. When floods^prevail, these fields of vegetables 

 are torn from their roots by the turbulent waters, carried downwards by 

 the current, and throAvn on shore near the mouth of the river, serve to 

 extend such marshes as those on which they grew; in more tranquil 

 seasons they stand erect, and form a sort of lane of tall reeds with curious 

 bulbular heads, and serve as a retreat to a great variety of water fowls. 

 About five miles above its mouth, this river is joined by the Pilar, from 

 the North East ; which has abeady passed near to a few small houses, and 

 one spacious building, forming a village of the same name. Two 

 miles farther up, we gain the first firm footing on the banks of the 

 Iguazu, where, on the left hand, stands a small Benedictine Convent, 

 pleasantly situated under the shade of a considerable hill, but with its 

 estate so grossly neglected, that the chief object seems to be the main- 

 tenance of a venda, and an extensive brick-work ; perhaps it is enough 

 that both of these are profitable. 



