BUENOS AYRES. 



65 



bows of the boat, and the plunges she made, 

 seemed to threaten the starting of a plank. 



In about eighteen hours after leaving Monte 

 Video, the wind having come fair, we dropped 

 anchor in the Roads, nine miles from Buenos 

 Ayres. This town we now saw stretching along 

 the coast, with its domes and spires, which 

 alone denoted the separation of land from water. 

 They indeed appear to rise from the same plain 

 with the sea, and nothing but the elevated 

 buildings mark the beginning of the shore. 

 Monte Video is on the left bank, a hundred 

 miles from the mouth of the river, which is 

 there more than sixty miles broad. At Buenos 

 Ayres, which is on the opposite bank, a hundred 

 miles higher up than Monte Video, the distance 

 across is thirty miles. The river is navigable 

 many leagues farther up, before it is divided 

 into the Paraguay and Uraguay, also navigable, 

 and which, by their junction, form the Plata. 



