lled half a dozen, and missed nearly as many more--
a throbbing boat does not improve one's aim. We passed forests of
palms that extended for leagues, and vast marshy meadows, where
storks, herons, and ibis were gathered, with flocks of cormorants and
darters on the sand-bars, and stilts, skimmers, and clouds of
beautiful swaying terns in the foreground. About noon we passed the
highest point which the old Spanish conquistadores and explorers,
Irala and Ayolas, had reached in the course of their marvellous
journeys in the first half of the sixteenth century--at a time when
there was not a settlement in what is now the United States, and when
hardly a single English sea captain had ventured so much as to cross
the Atlantic.

By the following day the country on the east bank had become a vast
marshy plain dotted here and there by tree-clad patches of higher
land. The morning was rainy; a contrast to the fine weather we had
hitherto encountered. We passed wood-yards and cattle-ranches. At one
of the latter the owner, an Argentine of Irish parentage, who still
spoke English with the accent of the land of his parents' nativity,
remarked that this was the first time the American flag had been seen
on the upper Paraguay; for our gunboat carried it at the masthead.
Early in the afternoon, having reached the part where both banks of
the river were Brazilian territory, we came to the old colonial
Portuguese fort of Coimbra. It stands where two steep hills rise, one
on either side of the river, and it guards the water-gorge between
them. It was captured by the Paraguayans in the war of nearly half a
century ago. Some modern guns have been mounted, and there is a
garrison of Brazilian troops. The white fort is perched on the
hillside, where it clings and rises, terrace above terrace, with
bastion and parapet and crenellated wall. At the foot of the hill, on
the riverine plain, stretches the old-time village with its roofs of
palm. In the village dwell several hundred souls, almost entirely the
officers and soldiers and their families. There is one long street.
The one-story, daub-and-wattle houses have low eaves and steep sloping
roofs of palm-leaves or of split palm-trunks. Under one or two old but
small trees there are rude benches; and for a part of the length of
the street there is a rough stone sidewalk. A little graveyard, some
of the tombs very old, stands at one end. As we passed down the street
the wives and the swarming