UP THE URUGUAY RIVER. 219
quim Jose Pinto, with four guuboats, besides the steamer Gualeguay carrying the Oriental flag. The garrison burnt the steamer Villa del Salto in order to prevent her falling into the hands of the invaders; and accuses the latter — I know not with what truth — of firing into the utterly de- fenceless town large guns and congreve rockets. The foreign residents severely blame Lieut. -Commander Notts, H.M.'s gunboat Sheldrake, for going to coal at Paysandu during their hour of difficulty, and headed by Mr. Williams, formed a deputation and prayed D. Leandro Gomez to re- tire from a place which he could not protect. In early December, 1864, he yielded Salto without a blow to General Flores, and marching south to Paysandu, he presently found a grave.
After inspecting Salto I did the same service to Con- cordia of Entre Rios. The town is neat and pretty, the gardens are well kept, and the Campo is fertile and pic- turesque. I bore a letter for the Brazilian Consul, a Portuguese, who had forgotten his mother tongue : he was perforce circumspect ; he spoke under breath, and when he talked of anything that might be construed politically he looked around shuddering as though a bogie had been in the room. Even the boatmen on the river trembled at the name of General I Jr quiz a, and doubtless by his order arbi- trarily made the dollar worth eight instead of ten rialo.
A comparison between the settlements places Salto at least fifty years in advance of her neighbour. The former has besides the usual public buildings, its own Steam Navi- gation Company — the Compania Salteiia — it has made its pier, it is finishing its Custom-house, and it proposes to run as far as Sta. Rosa a railway around the rapids which disconnect it, as the name denotes, with the upper Uruguay. Concordia is lively, morally and physically, as Herculaneum and Pompeii.
