Narrative of the surveying voyages of his majesty's ships Adventure and Beagle (vol.2): between the years 1826 and 1836 : describing their examination of the southern shores of South America, and the Beagles's circumnavigation of the globe

298 HJVER NEGRO BANKS. DeC. tons was taken, by a wiser master, to Port Melo, and there her carso was discharged into small craft, which landed it safely in the River Negro. Many of these ill-fated vessels were never afterwards heard of ; but from the numerous wrecks seen along the coast between the Colorado and the Negro, it may be inferred that they and their unfortunate crews perished in the surf occasioned by south-east gales, or were capsized by sudden pamperoes. Running up the River Negro (on the 7th December), Lieut. Wickham found the 'freshes'* strongly against him. The banks of the river afforded a pleasing contrast, by their ver- dure, to the arid desert around Anegada Bay. Most part of these banks was cultivated, and great quantities of fine corn was seen growing. Here and there were country houses (quin- tas) surrounded by gardens, in which apple, fig, walnut, cherry, quince, and peach trees, vines, and vegetables of most kinds were abundantly plentiful. Althouffh the banks of the river are so fit for cultivation, it is only in consequence of floods, which take place twice a-year — once during the rainy season of the interior, and once at the time when the snow melts on the Cordillera. These floods swell the river several feet above its banks, bringing a deposit of mud and decayed vegetable matter, which enriches the soil and keeps it moist even during the long droughts of that climate. The plough used there is wooden, and generally worked by oxen, but it does not cut deeply. Manure is never used, the soil being so fattened by alluvial deposits. The town of Nuestra Seiiora del Carmen, is about six leagues up the river, on its northern bank, upon a slightly-rising ground about forty feet above the water. It is irregularly built : the houses are small, one only having two stories ; and glass win- dows are seldom seen : each house has a large oven. A square enclosure of some extent, formed by walls of unbaked bricks (adobes), is called the fort, and within it are the church, the * Showing that this was the period of one of the two floods to which the Negro is annually subject.