h his
eyes its life and scenery.

From Buenos Ayres the traveler, issuing from the Rio de la Plata,
ascends the Parana by steamer to Asuncion, the capital of Paraguay; and
on the morning after the conversation with his principal M. Forgues
embarked on the Republica, a low-pressure steamboat furnished with a
walking-beam, and similar in its architecture and equipments to the
passenger steamers in use on the waters of the Northern and Middle
States of the Union.

After steaming two hours the Republica reaches the vast delta of the
Parana, skirting the Tigre Islands, a lovely group formed by the
numerous winding mouths of the river. The month is August, and a
charming effect is produced by the forests of palms, orange trees and
wild peach trees, the latter rosy with blossoms, which cover the
islands. The wild peach of the clingstone variety is almost the only
fruit of the province of Buenos Ayres, and when the season for gathering
it comes, a multitude of boats from the city may be seen moored in the
high grasses along the shores of the Tigre Islands, while the
_barqueros_ collect the peaches, which are free to whoever will pluck
them, fill their boats and return to the capital to sell them.

[Illustration: DELTA OF THE PARANA.]

[Illustration: TIGER ISLAND, MOUTH OF THE PARANA.]

The Republica ascends the river through the branch called the Parana de
las Palmas, up which Sebastian Cabot sailed in 1525, when in a schooner
of a hundred tons burden he penetrated to the heart of South America. It
passes, to the left, a hamlet, Campana, the prominent feature of which
is a handsome white building resembling a _palazzo_ of Italy, and which,
built on an elevation, dominates the other houses; Zarate, where are
situated a number of _saladeros_, or salting-places for the salting of
the hides of the province; and finally the mouth of the Baradero River,
a small stream which leads to a village of the same name, the home of a
prosperous colony of Swiss settlers.

Higher up, on the right shore, lies the drowsy old town of San Pedro,
founded in the middle of the seventeenth century, and which is chiefly
noticeable as having been at a standstill since that period, although
within the past three or four years it has begun to show signs of
development, one of which is a project to cut a ship-canal across a
narrow reach of sand which separates the lagoon on which the town is
built from the river, so as to give passage to Transatlantic