Richard Francis Burton

“ The Paraguay river, here 800 to 1000 yards broad, sags to the eastward, forming a bay or port of still, dead surface, like a little lake, and the bight is land-locked by a natural breakwater, a long green islet upon which cattle graze. ”

“ The lieges, if not in the caserne or the violon, must content themselves with the vilest ranchos, lean-tos, and tiled roofs supported, not by walls, but by posts. Nor may they dis- play their misery : it must be masked from the eye of opulence by the long dead brick walls that connect palace with palace. A large and expensively-built arsenal, river- side docks, a tramway, and a railway, have thrown over the whole affair a thin varnish of civilization ”

“ The artillery park stood to the north-west of the head- quarters. I counted twenty Whitworths — all kept in apple- pie order, as if by Hindu gunners. We saw the men of a field battery preparing to march with their twelve guns : larger and stronger than the soldiers of the line, they were very heavily laden. They are said to equal Paraguayans on the plain, but their enemies seldom meet them without throwing up an earthwork covering.
The Brazilian cavalry, the " eyes, feelers, and feeders of the army," were here in as good condition as those whom I saw at Humaita. ”

“ The brick walls that back the three tiers of boxes are four feet thick; they must be fearless of fire, and, after the usual theatres of South America, they suggest the Coliseum. The building was un- finished, and of course a dead mule occupied the inside. South of the theatre is the plain ground-floor house of Madame Lynch, who did not live in the palace of the Mar- shal-President, and she had bought the next-door house in order to establish an hotel. In Paraguay money-making is a passion even more passionate than love-making. ”

“ Francia, El Pilar, I have told you, was the terminus of ship navigation and the gaol of foreigners. With its 3000 souls, which travellers have exaggerated to 8000 and 9000, it ranked third amongst Para- guayan towns; Asuncion and Villa Rica taking higher rank. The solid land immediately about it grows, besides oranges, small maize, porongos or pumpkins, and excellent cotton : it might also be made to produce rice. ”

“ A few paces lead us to the old Cathedral, now the Encar- nacion Church. Curious to say, no fane has been raised to San Bias, patron of Paraguay, and even San Francisco Solano, who in 1589 reached Asuncion, has not won the honour of a chapel. The shape is truly Paraguayan; a single belfry to the south boasts of more than usual pic- turesqueness : the simple old Spanish fa9ade, pointing east, with the spacious tiled atrio, and the three-arched porch leading to the doors, has the improvement of a more massive cornice than is usual in South America, and the body is a long dorsum of red tiles. ”

“ He is the only general uni- versally loved and respected by the Argentines as well as the Brazilians, and this popularity has, it is said, excited the jealousy of his chief — certainly General Osorio^s name does not appear in orders as it deserves to appear. He is brave to temerity ; horse after horse has been shot under him, and the soldiers declare that he bears a charmed life, and shakes after battle the bullets out of his poncho. The Brazil need never despair of success when she can show such a noble example of gallantry and spirit as General Osorio. ”

“ On the north-east of the Pikysyry is the rising ground communicating with the Loma Valentina, and a little north of the dykes was a redoubt, which the Paraguayans were too hard worked to finish building. When the main force of the Allies crossed over to the Gran Chaco, they here left, in front of the Paraguay lines which they intended to turn, the Argentines, the Orientals, and the Brazilian brigade of 1500 men. ”

“ Every traveller remarks how clear of grass is the ground which they shadow ; but none explain whether the soil becomes barren by imbibing the acid juice of the fallen fruit, or whether it results from some deleterious emanation. ”

“ The large clearing showed a forest of poles and sticks; stretchers sheltered by remnants of roofs; grass still mangy and worn; green-painted litters and am- bulances, and long lines of broken huts and hovels ; in fact, the remnants of a big encampment. Here stood the general comercio or bazar, and the camp of the Argentines, who threw up a redoubt before attacking the Marshal President's last line of defence. The second mangruUo to the north denoted the Brazilian quarters, then sheltering some 20,000 men, and the Generalissimo Caxias occupied the Ildoriaga estancia not in sight of the stream. ”

“ Here begin the tramway and telegraph posts, running eastward, and passing a casemated, stone-revetted battery of ten guns, which commands the landing-place and the river. It concludes the system of defence, and you would find it hard to explain how such miserable works put to flight a squadron of Brazilian iron- clads. The tramway runs up the Calle de Asuncion, alias de la Iglesia, the chief street near the river. As the road has been graded down, many houses are perched upon tall detached blocks of stiff" red clay and incipient sandstone. ”

“ The Pampa plains, immense and limitless, those mysterious sea-like horizons of the solid land, stimulate the fancy like the unknown, and cause her to express herself in glowing language and exaggerated ideas. ”

“ Here was once a chapel, and people used to extract salt from the river mud.
Evidently we are now approaching a city. A made road, with avenues of trees, threads a succession of quintas, and runs over the hill on the eastern bank. Dwarf forest.
TRIP TO ASUNCION. 427
broken by orange groves and coquito palms in small clearings, clothes the ground, and the section of the tree- clad cliflf that faces the river is of ruddy sandstone deeply gashed by the streams that intersect it. An islet, a few hovels, and slanting telegraphic posts mark the mouth of the deep narrow Arroyo Itororo. ”

“ Lieutenant-Commander Bushe was very popular in the Brazilian fleet, and he has ably kept up the position of a neutral. It is no easy task to stand firm when so many influences are brought to bear upon one man — the public at home, the Admiralty, the diplomates at Buenos Aires, and last, but not least, the combatants. ”

“ The United States screw-steamer Wasp, Lieutenant-Commander Kirkland, arrived in the evening, and steamed off for Asuncion. All was darkness and mystery : the soldier and the sailor politician are usually extra political. They are converts opposed to old churchmen, volunteers contrasted with the regulars. Although there is a letter- bag for the British detenus on board the Linnet, I could not find out their names, and, as for their numbers, it was succinctly and roundly said that the English-speaking em- ployes might number one hundred, and the total of foreigners one thousand. ”

“ A certain Hungarian Colonel (in the Para- guayan army) , Wisner de Morgenstern, who printed his family arms upon his card, and who had become a great landowner in the Republic, had been imprudently allowed to reside at Asuncion. This is the individual who is said, in conjunction with Madame Lynch and the Coadjutor Bishop Palacios, to have tempted the Marshal -President to attack his neighbours, and, as chief military engineer, to have laid out the absurd entrenchments of Humaita. ”

“ The formation of the Asuncion hill is of grit and pudding- stone, often covered with a cape of iron ; the rock is evidently ferriferous, and the metal occurs pure in pyriform grains. The surface is a sand composed of fragmentary quartz, milky and coloured pale -red by oxide: the pieces are all more or less polished, and water, often chalybeate, bursts through the covering. The streets of Asuncion are the streets of Buenos Aires, only these are on a flat, and those are on a slope ”

“ Vultures rose from the bloated carcases of cattle ; and Paraguayan corpses, in leathern waist- wraps, floated face downwards, rising and falling after a ghostly fashion, w^ith the scour and ripple of the stream. At the apex of the re-entering angle of the southern bank were the Brazilian earthworks ; a kind of tete de pont was fronted by the best abatis that I had yet seen. Opposite it, and not connected by a bridge, was the lately captured redoubt which defended the San Fernando Pass, with the usual bar- racks and mangrullo. ”

“ Here and there a Persian lilac, "margoso,'^ or Nini tree grew well, whilst the Brazilian araucaria did not thrive. The myrtle and papaw, the ara9a and caju, flourished wild in the bush; and there was an abundance of the banana, whose fruit before the war was looked upon as "basura"' or sweepings. The orange tree is here fifty- five feet tall, far exceeding that of the Brazil, and even of Corrientes ; till thirty years old, it is half- grown, and when arrived at full age it averages per annum 500 fruits. ”

“ In the cool of the evening we strolled about the camp, to see what we could. Women — Brazilian mulatresses and Argentine " Chinas" — seemed to abound. Almost all were mounted en Amazone, and made conspicuous by mushroom straw hats, with the usual profusion of beads and blossoms. They distinguish themselves as the hardest riders, and it is difficult to keep them out of fire. They are popularly numbered at 4000, but this surely must be an exaggera- tion. It is bad enough to have any at all. ”

“ Offals lie all about : there is a dead animal in each line ; and where carts pass the wheels are often bogged in the quag- mire. The Brazilians declare that they have improved the streets, which they found overgrown with grass and weeds. Like all public works at Asuncion, nothing can be viler than the thoroughfares, and remember that I visited them in the heart of the " dries. ”

“ The ironclads unbank fires every morning, breakfast, leisurely steam up stream, bang away with their big guns at everything they see — we dis- tinctly hear their distant thunder — return before dark, dine, and sleep in all possible coziness. ”

“ The Brazilian infantry — as has been the case with certain Continental armies, and happily not of ours — appeared to be the refuse of the other arms. The veteran who commands well knows how to handle them ; he always masses his men in heavy columns,, and he gives the enemy an " indigestion de negres" generally sending 20,000 to attack 7000. ”

“ It is hard to say of any general that he wittingly commits high treason : in the Brazil, however, men are not particular, and the army Marshal has certainly given a handle to scandal. I have spoken of General Osorio^s success at Humaita, and I shall have to speak of Marshal-President Lopez' escape from Loma Valentina. Moreover, the Generalissimo gave up his high office in an unofficer-like way; after entering Asuncion he de- clared that the war was ended, that he had fulfilled his en- gagement, and that he was determined to retire on a certain day. ”

“ In the Brazil the case of Maria da Ponte and of many others, proves that popular enthusiasm would have produced, if encouraged, a copious crop of feminine volunteers.
The Paraguayan woman has always been the man of the family ”

“ The maize sacks and hay bales were tossed one by one upon the muddy ground, and were slowly rolled up the bank of the little cutting by a score of negro Sepoys in fatigue suits. As usual in these lands of liberty, every boy gave his opinion, and obtained at least as good a hearing as his seniors. In France or Englandsome seven hundred men would have been told off, and they would have done in ten minutes the work which here occupied nearly an hour. ”

“ Beyond them the ground droops towards a shallow valley, and the thorough- fares are mere holes or piercings in the dense bush, with here and there a rancho. The ridge-crest is seventy-five metres above the river. At present there is no plan of the city, but this want will soon be supplied.
On the right of the landing-place, between the two redoubts, is the much talked of Asuncion arsenal, where the "busy iron islanders," about thirty in a total of 150 hands, are said to have cast upwards of a hundred guns. ”

“ Sentinels are now at the door, and the soldier seems lord of all he surveys at Asuncion. He is accused of excessive " looting,^^ and not a few of the officers are supposed to
EX-CAPITAL OF PARAGUAY. 443
have lent him a ready hand. But there could have been little to plunder, and the noise made about an old piano taken from the club suggests far more smoke than fire. And why should not the soldier be allowed to plunder a deserted place ? Why cut away from him half the inducement to fight ? Prize-money, all the world over, enriches mostly the non-combatant ”

“ The first daily train, at 6 a.m., is held dangerous. Of late, certain waggoners have been arrested for cutting the trestles, holding that the caminho de ferro spoils their trade. Every train, in fact, 'does the work of nine carts, which can carry only two bales of pressed hay each, and without the iron road, the Brazilian operations, I have told you, would have been greatly delayed. ”

“ Beyond the Oriental headquarters we passed dwarf trin- cheiras, or earthworks, supported by palm-trunks, and commanding the land approach, with platforms for two guns ; of these barricades many are scattered across the seve- ral roads. Fording a stream and giving a wide berth to a dead mule, we turned into the gardens that lay on our left. It was impossible not to remark how Brazilian the fauna and flora had become. ”

“ He easily domesticated them when in captivity; they are far better to look after poultry than the irritable agami (psophia) , and, being armed with a pair of strong wing-spurs, they are not afraid of dogs.
The other birds are of little importance. Gulls (larus) appear everywhere up the river. Ducks, water-hens, (fulica) , and parras abound in the swamps, and the mirasol (paddy-bird) , so ugly in captivity, stands like a hunch- backed Narcissus to admire his own white image in the water. ”

“ AGAIN TO THE ALLIED FRONT. 465
Loma Valentina, aud containing as you will see, a wealth of damaging documents. Good horses were tethered to the tree-stumps around. The General welcomed us, glanced at our letters, and asked if we had breakfasted — it is his generous practice to keep open house or tent. He then produced a box of the best Havannas, which were followed by cups of the fragrant Yungaz coffee. Originally from Mocha, this Bolivian variety is justly held in the highest esteem ; unfor- tunately it is rare as it is delicious. ”

“ A man's life is in each one of them, and the tenor usually is as follows : —
" Long live the Republic of Paraguay !
" Relation of the soldier Candido Ayala, of the company of Grenadiers, and of the battalion No. 3, and it is as follows : —
" The said soldier, when standing at night around the fire with other men of his own company, repeated to them the sayings and the offers made to him by the enemy, as he was going in the vanguard under Serjeant-major Citizen Benito Rolon, on occasion of finding himself where he and they could hold communication. ”

“ In this part of Paraguay the " capilla^'- village is not known ; the people live in detached farms with mud walls, and open ranchos surrounded by oranges, palms, and mamones, as papaws are named after the shape of their fruit. Cotton was formerly grown here in fields neatly kept as gardens, and some contained 300 lineos, or 20,000 hills. The shrub has now been allowed to run wild. Marshal-President Lopez had made, much like Mohammed Pasha of Egypt, the planting of tree- wool obligatory, and with 20,000 troops at his command, hands were never wanting. ”

“ Gaucho warfare consists of scattering before the fight, gal- loping about, banging guns and pistols in the air, shouting the Redskin " slogan/^ and foully abusing one another^s feminine relatives. The infantry take shelter, and ad- vance under cover so as to steal a march upon the enemy. Both cavalry and infantry retire when a few men have been wounded or killed ; and, after the " battle " the throats of all prisoners are cut, according to the fashion of the Mohawks. D. Emilio praised the persistency of the Brazilian whites, who, in this particular, apparently resemble the Russians. ”

“ The latter word, also written Nembucu, is the name of a large estero lying to the east of the Paraguay, and it is translated " palavra larga," — a long word, possibly from the extent of the swamp. Between El Pilar and the Parana river, the surface of 7 to 8 Paraguayan leagues,* forming the Guazucua Department, is said to be all mud and water. The distance from Humaita is computed at fifteen miles along the land road, and seven leagues by the river. Between El Pilar and the Estancia de Yacare, where the Brazilian headquarters now are, is a seven- league march. ”