"La Plata" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Harbor there came to be stored hemp from Luzon, gum copal from Zanzibar, palm oil from Africa, coffee from Arabia, tallow from Madagascar, whale oil from the Antarctic, hides and wool from the Rio de la Plata, nutmeg and cloves from Malaysia. Such merchandise had been bought or bartered for by shipmasters who were much more than mere navigators. They had to be shrewd merchants on their own accounts, for the success or failure ...
— The Old Merchant Marine - A Chronicle of American Ships and Sailors, Volume 36 in - the Chronicles Of America Series • Ralph D. Paine
... authenticated, they would have been quite incredible. So it is with plants: cases could be given of introduced plants which have become common throughout whole islands in a period of less than ten years. Several of the plants now most numerous over the wide plains of La Plata, clothing square leagues of surface almost to the exclusion of all other plants, have been introduced from Europe; and there are plants which now range in India, as I hear from Dr. Falconer, from Cape Comorin to the Himalaya, which have been imported from America ...
— Darwiniana - Essays and Reviews Pertaining to Darwinism • Asa Gray
... where she is supposed to lie, in about two miles of water," replied the captain. "We are quite a distance off the coast of Uruguay, about opposite the harbor of Rio de La Plata. From now on we shall have to nose about under water, ...
— Tom Swift and his Submarine Boat - or, Under the Ocean for Sunken Treasure • Victor Appleton
... sheepfold, where he would have learned to use a butcher knife, which was the chief point for the accusation. Phillis wrote to the various towns where Florentin had lived, and to tell the truth, he had worked at La Plata for six months as accountant in a large sheepfold, but never slaughtered ...
— Conscience, Complete • Hector Malot
... proceed northward, and in the space of an hour find ourselves at the mouth of the Yang-tse Kiang, or Ta Kiang, the "Great River," as the Chinese call it. The width of its embouchure suggests an Asiatic rival of the Amazon and La Plata. We now see why this part of the ocean is sometimes described as the Yellow Sea. A river whose volume, it is said, equals that of two hundred and forty-four such rivulets as Father Thames, pours into it its muddy waters, making ...
— The Awakening of China • W.A.P. Martin
... the expectation of ultimately joining the Commodore off St. Helena, the last indicated point of assembly; but having been unable to renew his stores in St. Catherine's, and ascertaining that there was no hope of better success at Buenos Ayres, or the other Spanish settlements within the River La Plata, he after reflection decided to cut loose from the squadron and go alone to the Pacific. There he could reasonably hope to support himself by the whalers of the enemy; that class of vessel being always well provided for long absences. ...
— Sea Power in its Relations to the War of 1812 - Volume 2 • Alfred Thayer Mahan
... acknowledge Joseph Bonaparte, and had lapsed into a state of chaos; the restoration of Ferdinand VII. had induced most of them to return to their allegiance, but the three south-eastern colonies, Banda Oriental (Uruguay), La Plata (the Argentine), and Paraguay, continued in revolt. In 1817 fortune turned still further against Spain; Monte Video, the capital of Banda Oriental, was taken by Portugal, or rather by Brazil, and Chile revolted ...
— The Political History of England - Vol XI - From Addington's Administration to the close of William - IV.'s Reign (1801-1837) • George Brodrick
... Straits of Magellan, Stradling, surprised by a frightful hurricane, had seen his vessel entirely disabled. Repulsed at five different times, now by the tempest, now by the Spaniards, from the ports where he attempted to take refuge, he was thrown, near La Plata, on an inhospitable shore. Attacked, pillaged by the natives, half of his crew having perished, with the remains of his ship he constructed another, to which he gave the name of the Cinque Ports, instead of that of the Swordfish, which it was no longer worthy to bear. This ...
— The Solitary of Juan Fernandez, or The Real Robinson Crusoe • Joseph Xavier Saintine
... rather at getting rid of him. If you received news that a tornado had caught your ship and sunk it with every soul on board, what joy it would give you! You are not thinking of the flour-trade with its profits and losses, but that every year in the swamps of La Plata and the river Amazon that fearful specter walks—the yellow fever—which, like the tiger, lies in ambush for the new-comer. Of every hundred, sixty fall victims to it. It is that of which the prospect gives you pleasure. You ...
— Timar's Two Worlds • Mr Jkai
... largest river system in the world, the other drains the most extensive lake surfaces known to exist in immediate contiguity. The Orinoco, with its bay, recalls Hudson's Bay and its many tributaries, and the Rio Magdalena may be said to be the South American Mackenzie; while the Rio de la Plata represents geographically our Mississippi, and the Paraguay recalls the Missouri. The Parana may be compared to the Ohio; the Pilcomayo, Vermejo, and Salado rivers, to the River Platte, the Arkansas, and ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 105, July 1866 • Various
... fixed, and the fore-part broken off, I am persuaded I might have made a good voyage; for, by what I found in these two chests, I had room to suppose the ship had a great deal of wealth on board; and, if I may guess from the course she steered, she must have been bound from Buenos Ayres, or the Rio de la Plata, in the south part of America, beyond the Brazils, to the Havanna, in the Gulf of Mexico, and so perhaps to Spain. She had, no doubt, a great treasure in her, but of no use, at that time, to any body; and what became of her crew, ...
— The Life and Adventures of Robinson Crusoe Of York, Mariner, Vol. 1 • Daniel Defoe
... Buenos Aires, Comodoro Rivadavia, Concepcion del Uruguay, La Plata, Mar del Plata, Necochea, Rio Gallegos, Rosario, ...
— The 2004 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency
... without a natural liking for it, and soon became an ardent expert. He wrote reviews, and lectured, or amused himself in playing charades, and reading poetry. Clerk Maxwell, and Mr. Ricketts, who was lost in the La Plata, were among his visitors. During October, 1860, he superintended the repairs of the Bona-Spartivento cable, revisiting Chia and Cagliari, then full of Garibaldi's troops. The cable, which had been broken by the anchors of coral fishers, was grapnelled with difficulty. 'What rocks ...
— Heroes of the Telegraph • J. Munro
... be ready to come, Brooks?" I asked when we had settled preliminaries. "We shall be off by the next boat to La Plata, and I shall want you to get on with the packing as ...
— A Queen's Error • Henry Curties
... a curious fact that the snow with which we filled our water-tanks on the Barrier did not melt till we were in the River La Plata, which shows what an even temperature is maintained in ...
— The South Pole, Volumes 1 and 2 • Roald Amundsen
... above ocean level, and some reach into the sky for more than four miles. Many of these are burning mountains; the volcano of Cotopaxi is three miles higher than Vesuvius. Its rivers are among the longest in the world. The Amazon, Orinoco and La Plata systems drain an area of 3,686,400 square miles. Its plains are almost boundless and its forests limitless. There are deserts where no rain ever falls, and there are stretches of coast line where no day ever passes without rain. It is a country where all climates can ...
— Through Five Republics on Horseback • G. Whitfield Ray
... we come to the Mississippi in the northern continent and the Rio de la Plata in the southern do we find a pair of rivers which correspond to any degree in the character of the life surrounding them, as well as in their physiographic character. Yet even here there is a vast difference, especially in the upper courses of ...
— The Red Man's Continent - A Chronicle of Aboriginal America, Volume 1 In The - Chronicles Of America Series • Ellsworth Huntington
... already remitted twenty thousand pounds to Holland, settled his affairs, converted his effects into silver and gold, visited and took leave of all his friends; and, coming on board of my uncle's ship, with the first favourable wind we sailed from the Rio de la Plata, and in three ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol VIII • Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton, Eds.
... years older than the Saint, entered the army, and, serving in South America, was drowned in the river Plate, Rio de la Plata. St. Teresa always considered him a martyr, because he died in defence of the Catholic faith (Ribera, lib. i. ch. iii.). Before he sailed for the Indies, he made his will, and left all his property to the Saint, his sister (Reforma ...
— The Life of St. Teresa of Jesus • Teresa of Avila
... gettin' together at old Port Lewis to run races this week. One tribe or the other goes broke and walks home every year. If we could meet up with the winnin' crowd, down on the La Plata—" ...
— Laughing Bill Hyde and Other Stories • Rex Beach
... said that George Barlow, the companion of Sebastian Cabot, was an Irishman. Cabot was the first Britisher to sail up the Rio de la Plata, and gave it its name just thirty-five years after the discovery of America. Barlow was in the service of the king of Spain, and in that country met Cabot, who had been appointed Pilot Major to his Majesty in the year 1518. In 1577 we read of ...
— The Glories of Ireland • Edited by Joseph Dunn and P.J. Lennox
... regime: the colonies had too long enjoyed the sweets of direct trade with other countries, and they resented the ungentle attempts to restore them to complete dependence; between 1816 and 1820 the provinces on the Rio de la Plata, Chile, and Venezuela again revolted; and by 1822 there was a revolutionary government in every ...
— Formation of the Union • Albert Bushnell Hart
... it for the Crown of Portugal. His instructions were to ascertain how much of it was within the line of demarcation. Vespucci reached the Brazilian coast at Cape St. Roque, and then explored it very thoroughly right down to the river La Plata, which was too far west to come within the Portuguese sphere. Amerigo and his companions struck out south-eastward till they reached the island of St. Georgia, 1200 miles east of Cape Horn, where the cold and the ...
— The Story of Geographical Discovery - How the World Became Known • Joseph Jacobs
... thus spelled by WOLF, in his Life and Adventures, p. 144. Corral is at the present day a household word in South America, and especially in La Plata, to ...
— Sketches of the Natural History of Ceylon • J. Emerson Tennent
... forth with a commission from my late master, the Emperor Charles the Fifth, to discover the golden lands of Tarshish, Ophir, and Cipango; but being in want of provisions, stopped short at the mouth of that mighty South American river to which he gave the name of Rio de la Plata, and sailing up it, discovered the fair land of Paraguay. But you may not have heard how, on the bank of that river, at the mouth of the Rio Terceiro, he built a fort which men still call Cabot's Tower; nor have you, perhaps, heard of the strange tale which will ever make the tower a sacred ...
— Westward Ho! • Charles Kingsley
... that the man who explored and took possession of the great rivers of Buenos Ayres for Spain was Sebastian Cabot, he who, many years before, had with his father discovered North America in the service of England. It was in the year 1526 that he sailed up the noble river which he named the Rio de la Plata, a name suggested by the bars of silver which he obtained from the Indians on its banks. Sailing some hundred miles up the Paraguay River, he built at the mouth of the river Zarcaranna a stronghold which he named the Fort of the Holy Ghost. Some three ...
— Historical Tales - The Romance of Reality - Volume III • Charles Morris
... could be traversed in a few days by the Esperance—for so the transformed sloop was named. To provide, at the same time, against the possible contingency of the frail vessel failing to reach the Rio de la Plata, Freycinet determined to commence the construction of a schooner of a hundred tons, as soon as the sloop had taken her departure. Notwithstanding the incessant demands on the energies of all made by the arduous and varied tasks involved in reconstruction and refitting ...
— Celebrated Travels and Travellers - Part III. The Great Explorers of the Nineteenth Century • Jules Verne
... A little discussion in the La Plata river with a Spanish gentleman. At the end of it I was an ear short and he was a head short. It was considered in the family that I ...
— Second Plays • A. A. Milne
... sixteenth century, had been retained, with little opposition from without, and with still less from within, down to the close of the eighteenth century. These possessions, including Mexico and Central America, New Granada, Venezuela, Peru, La Plata, and Chili, covered an area larger than that of Europe, more than twice as large as that of the present United States. Through half a dozen generations they had been governed with all the short-sighted ...
— The Life of Thomas, Lord Cochrane, Tenth Earl of Dundonald, G.C.B., Admiral of the Red, Rear-Admiral of the Fleet, Etc., Etc. • Thomas Cochrane, Earl of Dundonald
... me, and at their charges furnished certaine ships, wherewith they caused me to saile to discouer the coastes of Brazile, where I found an exceeding great and large riuer named at this present Rio de la plata, that is, the riuer of siluer, into the which I sailed and followed it into the firme land, more then sixe score leagues, finding it euery where very faire, and inhabited with infinite people, which with admiration came running dayly to ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques, and Discoveries of The English Nation, Vol. XII., America, Part I. • Richard Hakluyt
... part of it, this basin contains about 1,250,000 square miles. In extent it is the second great valley of the world, being exceeded only by that of the Amazon. The valley of the frozen Obi approaches it in extent; that of La Plata comes next in space, and probably in habitable capacity, having about eight-ninths of its area; then comes that of the Yenisei, with about seven-ninths; the Lena, Amoor, Hoang-ho, Yang-tse-kiang, and Nile, five-ninths; the Ganges, less than one-half; the Indus, less than one-third; ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... The English ambassador, Lord Lexington, besides Gibraltar and Port Mahon, relied upon obtaining for the English a free trade in the brandies of Tarragon; this the Princess conceded to him. He desired also that they might be allowed to construct, upon the River de la Plata, a fort for their protection, and as a depot for negroes, in order that in future they might alone supply the Spanish colonies with slaves: this monopoly was also accorded. In return, Lord Lexington signed a convention with her, in which Queen Anne "engaged to ...
— Political Women, Vol. 2 (of 2) • Sutherland Menzies
... confederacy. Urquiza was compelled to leave Buenos Ayres and proceeded to Santa Fe, where he was acknowledged as President by the thirteen other provinces. They bound themselves by a treaty to secure the free navigation of all rivers flowing into the La Plata. On November 20, the Congress of the Confederation met at Santa Fe and invested Urquiza with full powers to suppress the revolution in Buenos Ayres. Urquiza's blockade of the city by sea led to another revolution within the walls ...
— A History of the Nineteenth Century, Year by Year - Volume Two (of Three) • Edwin Emerson
... in his native province of Maine, rose to be the royal governor of Massachusetts, and the story of whose wonderful adventures in raising the freight of a Spanish ship, sunk on a reef near Port de la Plata, reads less like sober fact than like some ancient fable, with talk of the Spanish main, bullion, and plate and ...
— Initial Studies in American Letters • Henry A. Beers
... terminals: Bahia Blanca, Buenos Aires, Concepcion del Uruguay, La Plata, Punta Colorada, Rosario, San Lorenzo-San Martin, ...
— The 2007 CIA World Factbook • United States
... they run wild and flourish in what naturalists call a "feral" state. Thus we find feral horned cattle in the Falkland and in the Ladrone islands, as well as in the ancient Chillingham Park, in Northumberland; we find feral pigs in Jamaica; feral European dogs in La Plata; feral horses in Turkestan, and also in Mexico, descended from Spanish horses.[266] If the Northmen had ever founded a colony in Vinland, how did it happen that the English and French in the seventeenth century, and from that day ...
— The Discovery of America Vol. 1 (of 2) - with some account of Ancient America and the Spanish Conquest • John Fiske
... forehead he plants a horn which vies with that of the Spanish Copris. While equally rich in metallic splendour, his mate has no fantastic embellishments, which are an exclusive prerogative of masculine dandyism among the Dung-beetles of La Plata as among ...
— The Glow-Worm and Other Beetles • Jean Henri Fabre
... cessation of European wars the United States stood singularly aloof from the Old World, yet in the affairs of South America they did not cease to take a lively interest. The successive revolutions by which the provinces of the Rio de la Plata, Chili, Peru, Colombia, Brazil, and Mexico threw off the yoke of Spain woke a thrill in the people of the United States, for they thought they saw the events of their own revolution repeated in the exploits of San Martin and ...
— Union and Democracy • Allen Johnson
... on the Amazons. After I have made this apology the reader, on his part, will readily admit that, in treating of the Natural History of a district so well known, and often described as the southern portion of La Plata, which has a temperate climate, and where nature is neither exuberant nor grand, a personal narrative would ...
— The Naturalist in La Plata • W. H. Hudson |
