THE ARRIVAL AT POSADAS. 
11 
up-country workers spend their hard-earned 
money when they come to Posadas to ‘see life.’ 
Many of the roofs are in holes, and, after a day 
of rain, bedding and furniture have to be hung 
out in the sun to dry. Of gardens in the usual 
sense of the word there are none, but each hut 
is surrounded with huge bushes of datura, 
scarlet flowered pomegranates, white jasmine 
and orange trees. Even the telegraph wires 
have orchids growing on them. 
The railway ends at Posadas, and the train is 
run on to a ferry and taken bodily across the 
river to Paraguay, where it starts afresh on 
another line. 
Walking along the railway track by which 
we had come, we found a tangle of vegetation 
on either side the line. Butterflies crossed and 
recrossed our path, and, with a sudden whirr, 
a humming bird darted into sight, to hover over 
a bed of scarlet cannas. Even their brilliant 
colour was dimmed by his burnished radiance. 
He was barely three and a half inches long, his 
breast emerald green where the light caught it, 
grey in the shade. He hovered over the flowers, 
darting his long bill into first one then another : 
then preened himself on a twig close by, show¬ 
ing no fear of us. Then away he darted again 
and disappeared. The flight is so direct and 
swift that it is impossible to follow with the 
eye, and in a moment he blends with the 
brilliant background and is gone. But can any 
