To prevent useless repetitions, I will extract those parts of my journal which refer to the same districts, without always attending to the order in which we visited them.
MALDONADO is situated on the northern bank of the Plata, and not very far from the mouth of the estuary.

It is a most quiet, forlorn, little town; built, as is universally the case in these countries, with the streets running at right angles to each other, and having in the middle a large plaza or square, which, from its size, renders the scantiness of the population more evident.

It possesses scarcely any trade; the exports being confined to a few hides and living cattle.

The inhabitants are chiefly landowners, together with a few shopkeepers and the necessary tradesmen, such as blacksmiths and carpenters, who do nearly all the business for a circuit of fifty miles round.

The town is separated from the river by a band of sand-hillocks, about a mile broad: it is surrounded on all other sides by an open slightly-undulating country, covered by one uniform layer of fine green turf, on which countless herds of cattle, sheep, and horses graze.