16 
THE GOLDEN RIVER. 
the sun. The torn leaves of plantains showed 
emerald green against the sky, and scurrying 
white galleons of clouds were all that remained 
of yesterday’s storm. 
After lunch two of the party went ashore 
with their guns, but saw no game, the under¬ 
growth being too dense; and in a short time the 
launch started again. In this fashion, day 
after day slipped peacefully past. At night, 
we tied up at the nearest good anchorage : and 
at dawn we woke. After an early breakfast 
the engines were again started; and seated in 
the bows, we watched the river as it raced past, 
the dense foliage of strange trees, with a gleam 
of wild oranges in the tangle, the lonely white- 
sanded bays, the changing green walls of the 
forest. 
We were following the same route by which 
Sebastian Cabot, in the early part of the 
XVIth century, sought the Eldorado which was 
rumoured to lie far up the great tropical rivers. 
He had sailed a certain distance up the Parana, 
then turned, and went up the river Paraguay, 
which joins the former a little above the town 
of Corrientes. These two great waters, with 
those of the Uruguay, eventually form the 
immense estuary of the Rio de la Plata, 
the River of Silver, so named by the early 
Spaniards, from the legends of untold wealth 
to be found at its source. 
These mysterious great rivers, hurrying from 
