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Within four years two or three efforts at revolution have been made on the part of the people of Entre Rios under Lopez Jordan, their principal leader, General Mitre, and others. One year previous to the journey we are now describing our traveler had gone from Buenos Ayres to Parana on business.
Parana is the chief city of the province of Entre Rios, the people of which are possessed of a fierce spirit of independence, and, like the Basques of Spain, claiming the right to administer their domestic affairs in their own way, they are often in insurrection against the central government at Buenos Ayres, which resorts to force to check their "separatist" tendencies.
Being arrived at the mouth of the Parana, and as I was very anxious to reach Buenos Ayres, I went on shore at Las Conchas, with the intention of riding there. Upon landing, I found to my great surprise that I was to a certain degree a prisoner. A violent revolution having broken out, all the ports were laid under an embargo.
This stability of government is owing to his tyrannical habits; for tyranny seems as yet better adapted to these countries than republicanism. The governor's favourite occupation is hunting Indians: a short time since he slaughtered forty-eight, and sold the children at the rate of three or four pounds apiece. We crossed the Parana to St. Fe Bajada, a town on the opposite shore.
From this point a fine view is obtained of Parana in the distance, stretching along its high barranca, with its white houses and belfries in bold relief against the blue sky, and borrowing from the elevation on which it stands a delusively majestic aspect. As the Republica ascends the river the cliffs continue to be the prevailing feature of the shore-scenery.
We must change the scene now, and transport our reader to one of those numerous streams which convey the surplus waters of the Andes to the warmer regions of Bolivia, and thence, through many a wild, luxuriant wilderness and jungle, to the Parana river, by which they ultimately find their way to the sea.
The same writer gives us the derivation of the names of several of the rivers: Parana, resembling the sea; Paraguay, from the Payaguas, a tribe of Indians who were met with by the discoverers navigating the river; and Uruguay, from a bird the uru which is found on the banks of that stream.
No doubt many plants, besides the cardoon and fennel, are naturalized; thus the islands near the mouth of the Parana, are thickly clothed with peach and orange trees, springing from seeds carried there by the waters of the river.
At the mouth of the river is the island of Cerrito, formerly the Paraguayan Gibraltar, and now the Gibraltar of the Brazilians, who maintain there a garrison and an arsenal for the equipment of their navy. After passing the Cerrito the Paraguay winds in its course and becomes narrow the width not exceeding twelve hundred feet and of greater depth than the Parana.
I was informed by an eye-witness that the cattle in herds of thousands rushed into the Parana, and being exhausted by hunger they were unable to crawl up the muddy banks, and thus were drowned. The arm of the river which runs by San Pedro was so full of putrid carcasses, that the master of a vessel told me that the smell rendered it quite impassable.
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