Uruguay River

“ Above the falls, the Paraná is 4,500 yards wide, from which it suddenly contracts between granite walls 70 to 80 yards apart. Into this pass the water rushes with such tremendous fury, that clouds of spray arise and fall in perpetual rain over the neighborhood; the roar is such that no other sound can be heard, and the listener is made deaf by the thunder; even the very earth trembles, so that it has become desolate.
The Uruguay, a great river by itself, is almost insignificant in comparison. ”

“ Over the rolling hills of Uruguay struggled the human thread of emigrants. Death waited on the column in the shape of heat and hardship. But, though many children and many aged folk fell by the way, the great majority won through in safety to Salto, on the banks of the Uruguay; crossed the great river in boats, and took up their abode on the Argentine shore, awaiting with anxiety the hour that might permit their return to their native land. ”

“ The construction of railways is comparatively easy. The Uruguay River on the western boundary furnishes good communication with Uruguayan and Argentinian ports, and regular steamship service is maintained on it. There are also some rivers emptying into the lake, which are navigable for small craft.
The state of Matto Grosso, (the dense forest) is an empire in itself, for it contains a greater area than the original thirteen colonies. It is one-sixth as large as the United States. It is not only an undeveloped, but practically an unexplored country, whose resources are only half understood. ”

“ The Uruguay can be navigated at all seasons by vessels of 41⁄2 ft. draught as far up as the Salto Chico, and of 14 ft. up to Paysandú for a greater part of the year. Fray Bentos may be reached all the year round by any vessel that can ascend the Paraná. Above the navigable lower river there is launch and canoe navigation for many hundreds of miles upon the main artery and its branches, between the rapids which are met with from time to time. The Uruguay has its annual floods, due to the rains in its upper basin. ”

“ Montevideo, the capital of Uruguay, is situated on the remarkable estuary of the Plate River,—Rio de la Plata, or "Silver River,"—whose spacious mouth is marked by two capes, Santa Maria and San Antonio, more than one hundred miles apart. Only a nautical observation will show just where the line of ocean ceases and that of the estuary begins. The unobservant passenger believes himself still sailing upon the broad ocean until he finally sights the land on which the city stands. ”

“ The River Uruguay at this point is navigable for large ocean steamers, and a pier has been erected to accommodate these, which will put the railway system of the north of the Republic in a more favourable position to handle the various products of cattle-killing establishments, both in Uruguay and on the Brazilian side of the frontier of Rio Grande do Sul, an industry of increasing importance. ”

“ At the river Pepiri-guazú it turns suddenly to the south-west, and continues this course to its junction with the Paraná and Plata. Near Fray Bentos, 61 m. before reaching the Plata, it forms a great lake, about 56 m. long and from 4 to 6 m. wide. At Punta Gorda, where it debouches into the Plata, it is only 1 m. to 11⁄2 m wide but is 90 ft. deep. From the Pepiri-guazú junction its banks are high and covered with forest as far down as 27° 30′ S., where the river is 2300 ft. wide and from 10 to 40 ft. deep. The Uruguay is much obstructed by rocky barriers. ”

“ Beyond that 800 miles, it is navigable as a canal for 600 miles, almost to its sources in the mountains of Brazil, not far from one of the streams navigable into the heart of Bolivia upwards of 1,000 miles from the Atlantic. The Uruguay is navigable for 300 miles from its junction with the Parana, and there the navigation is stopped by a ledge of rocks which does not affect the level of the stream. Were this impediment removed—and the governments of Brazil and Buenos Ayres are bound by treaty to remove it—the river would be navigable for 300 miles further. ”

“ In this part of America the Republic of Uruguay is commonly designated as the Banda Oriental, because it lies altogether on the eastern bank of that great river. It possesses great natural advantages—282fine climate, sufficiently fertile soil, ready access by water to a vast region of the continent, along with a favourable position for intercourse with Europe. But these privileges are made almost valueless by human perversity. The military element, which has been allowed to dominate in the republic, is the constant source of social and political disorder. ”

“ Foreign ships were still able to proceed to Monte Video, (thanks to the independence of Uruguay) , and thus, although one line of intercourse with the interior was cut off by the blockade of the port of Buenos Ayres, the other up the river Uruguay was kept open. ”

“ Near Mendoza, at the foot of the Cordillera, it occurs in close neighbourhood with the allied alpine species. It is a very curious circumstance in its geographical distribution, that it has never been seen, fortunately for the inhabitants of Banda Oriental, to the eastward of the river Uruguay: yet in this province there are plains which appear admirably adapted to its habits. The Uruguay has formed an insuperable obstacle to its migration: although the broader barrier of the Parana has been passed, and the bizcacha is common in Entre Rios, the province between these two great rivers. ”

“ Uruguay, therefore, has no striking variety of climates; and except that the surface of the Northern Provinces is more broken with jagged mountain ranges and that in the neighbourhood of the River Uruguay and its affluents the country is more thickly wooded, there is not much change to be noted anywhere from its general character of an undulating grassy plain, with here and there a mount, or clump of low wood and brushwood, and an abundance of running streams. ”

“ The picture which D'Orbigny has given us of the life of the river belongs to the year 1827. At that time the estuary was blockaded by the Brazilian fleet in the whole area of the delta as far as San Pedro. Piracy was so rife, and the insecurity so great, on the Uruguay and the Paraná, that few ventured as far as Buenos Aires, the ships being linked in convoys. Up stream, Corrientes was the limit of navigation. The dictator Francis closed the Paraguay, and even the small boats no longer sailed on the upper Paraná, along the frontier of Paraguay. ”

“ The water itself has been growing more limpid all the while, now that the dead-flat, soft, alluvial soil of the Argentine bank has given way to a harder and more stony surface. It has become shallow in parts, too, and the nose of the steamer often gives a tentative turn to the right or left as she cautiously feels her way. The craft has penetrated almost to the limits of the lower stretch of the great river now, and the rising bed is a premonitory symptom of the end. ”

“ October 16th.—Some leagues below Rozario, the western shore of the Parana is bounded by perpendicular cliffs, which extend in a long line to below San Nicolas; hence it more resembles a sea-coast than that of a fresh-water river. It is a great drawback to the scenery of the Parana, that, from the soft nature of its banks, the water is very muddy. The Uruguay, flowing through a granitic country, is much clearer; and where the two channels unite at the head of the Plata, the waters may for a long distance be distinguished by their black and red colours. ”

“ The huge irrigation scheme now being carried out will utilize an enormous natural hollow formerly known as the Cuenca Vidal, now rechristened Lago Pellegrini (after a once prominent Argentine statesman) as a natural storage reservoir. The surplus water from the lake and river system, which makes a network over the whole of the western part of the territories of Neuquen and the Rio Negro, at the base of the Andes, will be utilized for the irrigation of their eastern plains. ”

“ A striking instance of this has occurred quite recently in the case of the vexed question concerning the delimitation of neutral waters in the River Plate. The rights affecting a great inland and international highway are naturally most delicate and difficult to adjust, as the past history of the entire river system here has proved on numerous occasions. In this particular instance had either Uruguay or Argentina shown any other but a fair and conciliatory [35] spirit, the consequences cannot fail to have been serious in the extreme. ”

“ The southern half of the country is mostly undulating grass land, well watered by streams and springs. The northern section is more broken and rugged; barren ridges and low rocky mountain-ranges, interspersed with fertile valleys, being its characteristic features. There is no forest, timber of any size being found only in the valleys near running water. Uruguay is intersected nearly from west to north-east by the river Negro and its affluent the Yi. ”

“ Uruguay can still be roughly divided into two parts by drawing an almost straight line from, say, Mercedes on the River Uruguay to San Vicente on the Atlantic, the chief cereal areas lying south of this line, while the land north of it chiefly carries live stock. ”

“ A few days’ further steaming and they arrived at the harbour of Buenos Ayres, where the two great rivers, the Uruguay and the Parana, unite to form the wide sheet of water called the River La Plate. It was night when the Barbadoes dropped her anchor, and it was not until the morning that they obtained their first view of their future home. ”

“ But, apart from its upper reaches, broad and full-flowing, the Uruguay encircles the Republic whose name it bears on its western side, and, falling into the Plate, affords, in conjunction with the sea, a water-frontage on three sides of the State, and is navigable for 200 miles from its mouth as far as the towns of Salta and Paysandu. Many hundreds of miles of the river are navigable in smaller craft, affording valuable waterways for the inhabitants on its banks. ”

“ When it is not June in Uruguay, it is October—never too hot and never too cold. There is not such a thing as a stove in the whole country, but some of the foreigners have fireplaces in their houses, to temper the winds for the tender feet. What Montevideo most needs, like Buenos Ayres, is a harbor, for during a pampero the ships at anchor in the river are without protection, and at all times the landing and the shipping of merchandise are conducted with great difficulty in lighters, as at the latter place. ”

“ The natural resources of the great valleys of the Parana, Paraguay, and Uruguay, merely require to be developed by the same means to make Monte Video and Buenos Ayres as flourishing as New Orleans, and to make the commerce of the River Plate rival that of the Mississippi. ”

“ The United States steamer Water Witch, then lying in the Plata, ascended the river, and was fired upon from a fortification; several balls lodged in her hull, and one man was killed. The Water Witch destroyed the structure, and retired down the river to Montevideo, while the company’s men settled at the Tigre until matters could be adjusted. The Asuncion was then engaged in carrying sheep across to the Banda Oriental, the country on the north shores of the Plata, which is known on some maps as Uruguay. ”

“ SE. of Buenos Ayres city; rapidly built, it has continued to grow, and has now some handsome buildings, a college, and cotton and woollen manufactures; a canal connects it with the La Plata River.
La Plata River, a broad estuary in South America, from 28 to 140 m. broad and 200 m. long, with Uruguay on the N. and the Argentine Republic on the S., through which the Uruguay and Paraná rivers pour into the Atlantic; it is much exposed to storms; its best harbour is at Monte Video. ”

“ When you shall feed your cattle with oil-cake and pressed aUalfa^ instead of killing it when fresh from poor grass, fibreless and over- heated by long driving, man shall in the length of time achieve conserves of beef. As yet, however, I prefer to '^ Ext. Car." a glass of the smallest beer.
Before turning in we studied for a while the fair features of the River Uruguay, also known, as the River of the Missions. The name is translated by some stream of the Cachuelas or Rapids, by others w^ater of the Uru bird — the Charrua name of an aquatic. ”

“ Its agricultural products are also important, including wheat, Indian corn, barley and fruits. Lime, gypsum and firewood are also profitable items in its export trade. The Paraná and Uruguay rivers provide exceptional facilities for the shipment of produce and the Entre Rios railways, consisting of a trunk line running E. and W. across the province from Paraná to Concepción del Uruguay and several tributary branches, afford ample transportation facilities to the ports. Another railway line follows the Uruguay from Concordia northward into Corrientes. ”

“ The city is exceptionably well situated on a small rocky promontory, or rather we should designate it as a peninsula, jutting out into the estuary, three of its sides fronting the sea, and as its streets are nearly always swept by ocean breezes, it is cool and pleasant even in midsummer. The land rises gradually as it recedes from the shore, and then declines to the bed of a small stream which empties into the bay, thus affording a natural surface drainage. Uruguay is a little more than twelve times as large territorially as the State of Massachusetts, and is divided into thirteen departments. ”