It is a singular coincidence, that thus the two mightiest rivers of the South American continent, indeed two of the most remarkable rivers of the world, the Plata, and the Amazons, should derive their names from fictions, rather than from those brave adventurers who first made them known, and to whom the honour was the more justly due; as both of them, Orellana, as well as De Solis, lost their lives in the prosecution of those particular discoveries.
But one feeling takes possession of the stranger on his arrival off this wonderful river--that of amazement at the immensity of its extent; a hundred miles before he enters it, he may have seen its turbid current, and had to struggle with its influence in the ocean itself[7]. At its mouth, from Cape St. Mary's to Cape St. Antonio, its width is 170 miles. Farther up, between Santa Lucia, near Monte Video, and the point of Las Piedras on its southern bank, within which its waters are generally fresh, it is double[8] the distance across from Dover to Calais.
But for that positive freshness, the stranger can hardly credit that he is not still at sea. He has yet to sail up it nearly two hundred miles ere he reaches the anchorage off Buenos Ayres, and then, at the end of his voyage, if the ship be large[9], he will probably find it difficult to make out the land.
It is only from the pozos, or inner roads, that the city becomes visible in its full extent, ranging along a slightly elevated ridge, which bounds the river. The towers of the churches, and here and there a solitary Umbú tree, alone break an outline almost as level as the horizon of the river itself. There is no back-ground to the picture, no mountains, no trees; one vast continuous plain beyond extends for nearly 1000 miles unbroken to the Cordillera of Chile.
Unless the weather be perfectly settled, of which the barometer is the best index, the landing is not unattended with danger. I have known many a boat lost in crossing the bar or bank which lies between the outer and inner roads[10]. Nor is the bank the only danger: thick fogs at times come on, suddenly enveloping land and water in total darkness without the slightest previous indication; in such a dilemma, if a boat be caught without the means of anchoring, the chances are that she may be carried down the river by the currents, and the people half-starved before they are picked up or can find the land again.