INTRUDO SPORTS THIRTY YEARS AGO.
"Ladies are the greatest lovers of the Intrudo sports, and if you have any lady acquaintances here I warn you not to make any formal calls on them to-day, if you wish to preserve your dignity unruffled. It is a proverb here that 'Intrudo lies are no sin;' and while a lady is inviting a friend to a chair, and promising not to molest him in any way, she is getting ready to crush an Intrudo ball in his neck, or upon his shoulder, or arranging for him to sit down upon a dozen of them."
INTRUDO BALLS AND BOTTLES.
The gentleman sent a servant for some Intrudo balls and bottles, and gave the youths an opportunity to examine them. They were composed of wax thin enough to be easily broken in the hand or when striking an object a few feet away, and were filled with scented water. "They were formerly," said their informant, "made much larger than at present, and immense quantities were sold and used. At present they are small. The throwing of Intrudo balls in the streets is forbidden by the police, but occasionally the unruly urchins will embrace the opportunity to use them on each other, as you have already discovered. In many houses the balls are filled with flour instead ofwater, and the sport of the season resembles that of Naples and Venice. Thirty years ago every negro boy on the street was armed with a large 'squirt-gun,' which he used freely upon those of his own color; white people were at liberty to pelt any one of their complexion, and the sport became so riotous that its suppression was a public necessity."
WOODEN CANNON.
Among the curiosities in the museum they found a fine collection of living and stuffed specimens of the wild animals of Brazil. It included several jaguars and other carnivora from the interior provinces; a large cage filled with monkeys of every sort; another of snakes, among which was an anaconda seventeen feet long—at least, so said the attendant, and they were willing to take his word for it without personally measuring the reptile. There were stuffed humming-birds of many kinds; eagles, and their kindred, the vulture and condor; beautiful specimens of the ibis, which recalled the sacred bird of Egypt; together with many other winged creatures that have no names in our vocabulary. One of the condors had been recently used in a bull-baiting; the attendant narrated, with great animation, how the bird had been chained to the back of a young bull, and then turned into a ring. Bird and beast were maddened by the explosion of fireworks fastened to the animal'shead; in his efforts to escape the condor tore great gashes in the flesh of his companion in misfortune. It is pleasant to record that these amusements are every year less and less appreciated in South America, and it is to be hoped the day is not far distant when they will cease altogether.
THE CONDOR AND THE BULL.
There was a wooden cannon which was captured from the rebels in one of the northern provinces in the last revolution. It was made of slabs of wood bound together with hoops of iron, and appeared to have been used; it was a type of the earliest known cannon, and carried the thoughts of the spectators back to the days when artillery was first used on the battlefield. Horrible in appearance were embalmed heads from the country of the Tapajos; Dr. Bronson explained that this tribe used to preserve the heads of their enemies, and wear them on their necks as trophies of their valor. A string through the mouth was used for suspending such a prize; the eyes were filled with wax and cement, and the whole face was built out with this material, to make it as lifelike as possible. On the top of the head was a tuft of hair, and the positions of the ears were indicated by rosettes.
EMBALMED HEAD.
Close to these preserved heads was a casecontaining musical instruments resembling flutes and horns, and said to be of great antiquity; they were from the upper part of the Amazon Valley, and coeval with the incas of Peru. One trumpet attracted the attention of the youths; it was about three feet long, tapering regularly from end to end, and provided at the larger extremity with a fringe of feathers, which modulated the sound when the instrument was used. The attendant asked Frank and Fred to guess what it was made of; they named everything they could think of, but without success, and were finally told it was an alligator's tail!
ANCIENT MUSICAL INSTRUMENTS.
There were ancient combs, household utensils, and other things in the collection; Frank made a sketch of a comb which consisted of thin strips of a very hard wood set in transverse bars, and firmly bound with fine threads of a fibre resembling silk. One edge of the comb was straight, and the other curved; between the transverse strips that held the teeth in place, the flat space was covered with a closely woven mass of binding material, and a careful inspection showed the tracery of figures so delicate as to require very strong eyesight on the part of the operator.
ANCIENT COMB.
Among the specimens of pottery was a basin about eighteen inches in diameter, and perfectly preserved. The outside was quite plain, and somewhat blackened by smoke, but the inside was decorated with a great variety of lines that resembled serpents twisted together; the glazing was broken in many places, and did not seem to be well put on, while the shape of the basin indicated that it was made without the assistance of the potter's wheel.
BRAZILIAN BASIN.
Space will not permit us to name all the objects which occupied the time of the youths intheir visit to the museum; we will drop the basin, at the risk of breaking it, and accompany the party on board the steamer which is to carry them southward.
MONTEVIDEO FROM THE SEA.
They left the bay of Rio Janeiro as they had entered it, passing near the base of the Sugar-Loaf, and keeping their eyes fixed on its lofty peak until it dwindled to a mere point on the horizon. Southward and a little to the westward they took their course, and six days after leaving Rio were in front of Montevideo, the capital of Uruguay.
VIEW IN THE CAPITAL OF URUGUAY.
They found it a clean and well-built city, consisting largely of flat-roofed houses a single story in height, though there were many modern structures of two or three stories. It is on a point of land extending into a bay which affords shelter from all winds except the southwest; the harbor is well provided with docks and other conveniences for shipping purposes, and the city has half a dozen street railways, is lighted with gas, and has several steam railways into the interior of Uruguay. The business of the place is principally in the exportation of hides, wool, horse-hair, and other products of Uruguay and the surrounding country, and the importation of machinery, lumber, and numerous articles which may be classified as "assorted goods." Frank investigated the statistics, and found that Montevideo has a population of more than one hundred thousand, while Uruguay, of whichit is the capital, has half a million inhabitants, and an area of seventy thousand square miles. The party had about five hours on shore at Montevideo, and then returned to the steamer to cross the mouth of the Rio de la Plata to Buenos Ayres, one hundred and thirty miles distant. From the anchorage, about six miles from the city, they were taken ashore in a steam tender which came puffing out to meet them.
They landed with all their baggage, and after a delay in port of some twenty hours the steamer proceeded to the Strait of Magellan and the Pacific Ocean. In a subsequent chapter we will know more about her course. Most of the foreign steamers going southward from Montevideo do not visit Buenos Ayres, but go direct to the strait without stopping.
Twice as large as Montevideo, and with many evidences of wealth and prosperity, Buenos Ayres impressed our young friends as second only to Rio Janeiro among the cities of the South American continent, as far as they had seen them. Its streets are parallel to each other; it contains many fine buildings, both public and private; has ten daily newspapers in Spanish, French, English, German, and Italian, besides several weekly or monthly publications; can boast of banks, theatres, hospitals, churches, convents, public libraries, museums, and the like; has several good hotels; and is, in fact, a comfortable place to be in. So thought our friends as they settled in their hotel and afterwards took a stroll through one of the principal streets.
"If only Montevideo had a country back of it like that which feeds Buenos Ayres it would get the most of the business at the mouth of the River Plate. Montevideo has a good harbor and Buenos Ayres a poor one; the former has safe anchorage and is well sheltered, while the latter is shallow, and open to half the winds that blow. In the easterly gales the estuary at Buenos Ayres is apt to overflow its banks, and when there is a strong wind from the west the water is so blown out that ships of deep draught have to change their moorings. But Montevideo has no important country behind it, while Buenos Ayres sweeps all the way westward to the Andes, south to Patagonia, and north into Paraguay."
So spoke the captain of the steamer as they were crossing the broad estuary of the La Plata. As they looked on the evidences of prosperity in Buenos Ayres, and learned that the city had grown up under many disadvantages, they expressed their admiration for the energy and enterprise of its merchants in no stinted terms.
OX-CART OF BUENOS AYRES.
Only small vessels can come close to the water-front of the city; ships drawing more than eighteen feet must anchor several miles out, and all freight and passengers come to the shore in lighters. Two piers, each fifteen hundred feet long, have been built, for the use of small steamersand other boats of light draught; before these piers were constructed it was necessary to land in flat-bottomed boats, or in carts with wheels ten or twelve feet in diameter, which were pushed out into the water, where they could receive their loads. Even at present the carts must be used occasionally, when an extremely low tide prevents boats from reaching the piers. Frank and Fred were reminded of the harbor of Madras, and their adventures in going ashore there in a masullah boat; on the whole they thought the cart preferable to the masullah boat, but would risk a brief delay rather than intrust themselves to it if a gale happened to be blowing.
Water for drinking purposes was formerly as scarce in the city as that for anchoring ships in front of it. Down to a few years ago the inhabitants depended upon wells within the city limits, and carts which brought water from the river, where it was not affected by the tide from the sea. The well water was brackish and hardly drinkable, while the river water was sold at a high price. Now the city has been provided with waterworks and the old troubles have ceased. The drainage has been improved, and altogether it is a cleanly place, though less so than Montevideo.The latter owes its name to the mountain or hill on which it is partly built, and from which there is a fine view; while the former is named for its "good air." It is certainly a healthy place, according to the reports of residents, though it is liable to sudden changes of temperature. The thermometer rarely exceeds ninety degrees or descends below eighteen degrees; yellow fever comes occasionally, but not often, and there are no other epidemics.
Two days in Buenos Ayres were sufficient to exhaust the characteristic features of the place, and give the youths an insight into the history of the country of which it was the seaport. We will again exercise our privilege of peeping into Fred's note-book for information which will interest our readers.
SOLDIERS OF THE ARGENTINE REPUBLIC.
"Buenos Ayres," the record says, "is the capital of the province of the same name, and also of the Argentine Republic, or Argentine Confederation, of which the province forms a part. The country has been through a series of wars which it is not necessary to describe here; from present indications it has a destiny of peace before it, though a revolution may break out at any moment. The Argentine Confederation includesfourteen provinces; it has a president, who is elected for six years, a cabinet of five ministers, a congress of two houses, a national debt, an army and a navy, together with other paraphernalia of government. It has two thousand miles of railway, and another thousand is in process of building; it has frequent disputes with Chili as to its rights in Patagonia; a population of about two millions; and herds of cattle, sheep, and horses too large for careful enumeration.
"Of late years it has encouraged emigration from Europe, and there are probably half a million people of European birth now living in the country. One fourth of these are Italians, and the rest are Spaniards, Irish, English and Scotch, Germans, Portuguese, and a few other nationalities; in the province of Buenos Ayres there are seventy thousand Italians, forty thousand of whom are in the city of that name. At every step we hear the Italian language spoken, and the signs over the shop doors bear more Italian than Spanish names. The Spaniards were the original settlers of the country, but their identity is rapidly disappearing under the influx of immigration from Europe.
A GUACHO.
"It is interesting to note the occupations of the various nationalities as they settle in this new country. The descendants of the original conquerors are generally known asGuachos, or 'countrymen;' they rarelylive in the cities, preferring the wild life of the interior, where they dwell in rude huts, subsist on the flesh of cattle or wild game, and have an existence little better than semi-civilized. They are the finest horsemen in the world, if half the stories we hear of them are true, and a group of guachos ought to put to shame the best circus troupe that was ever organized.
A GUACHO ON HORSEBACK.
"Apropos of this, I am told that a circus company came to Buenos Ayres, years ago, when the place was the resort of the guachos, and gave a performance. Just as the show ended a group of guachos rode into the ring and completely outdid the circus men in every one of their tricks, besides several that were not down in the bills. The circus company sailed away for Valparaiso, but it had no better luck there than at Buenos Ayres. The Chilians are splendid horsemen, and defeated the professional performers at their own game. It was probably the same company we heard about at Lima.
"The Italian emigrants engage in building houses and in raising vegetables in the market-gardens surrounding the principal cities; those from Genoa have almost a monopoly of the boating business on the rivers, and they man the coasting ships and other craft. The Catalonian Spaniards are mostly wine-merchants; the Andalusians are shop-keepers and cigar dealers; and the Galicians are employed as domestics, porters, watchmen, and railway servants of the lower grades. Emigrants from the Basque provinces are the most numerous, next to the Italians, and their employments are similar to those of the Galicians, in addition to bricklaying, sheep-tending, and farm-work in general. The Irish are the sheep-farmers of the country, and it is said there are thirty millions of sheep in the Argentine Republic owned by Irish settlers. The English, Scotch, and Germans are generally occupied with commerce, though some of them have gone into cattle and sheep farming, like the Irish; the French are commercially inclined, some branches of trade being almost monopolized by them, and they assimilate with the native Argentines more readily than do the English and Germans. The aboriginal Araucanians generally retain their independence, leading a nomadic life, and keeping large herds of cattle and horses, which furnish their subsistence.
POST-STATION ON THE PAMPAS.
"There you have a picture of the population, which is as heterogeneous as that of the United States of North America, and has good promise for the future. The country is as diversified as the people; it consists of dense forests and vast pampas or plains, in which the herds of countless cattle and horses, and flocks of equally countless sheep, find a nutritious pasture. The pampas are far more extensive than the forests,and there are places where you may travel miles and miles without seeing a tree, or even a bush. Altogether, the Argentine Republic contains a million square miles of land between latitude 21° and 41° south, and from the Atlantic Ocean to the Andes, which separate it from Chili. The southern part of the territory is a vast desert; it is certainly a foolish quarrel between Chili and the republic, for the possession of this inhospitable region. The whole area in dispute is not worth thelives of the men who have died there while trying to hold on to it."
While Fred was writing the foregoing notes on the country, and Dr. Bronson and Frank were occupied with letters for home, Manuel was sent to engage passage on a steamer bound up the River Plate. Frank will tell us the story of the voyage.
A STEAMER ON THE RIVER PLATE.
"Navigation on the River Plate is free to all nations," wrote the youth in his journal, "the same as on the Amazon. The river is variously called 'Rio de la Plata,' 'River Plate,' and 'Plate River,' and, strictly speaking, it is an estuary rather than a river. It is formed by the junction of the Parana River with the Uruguay almost within sight of the ocean; the broad estuary is full of shoals and intricate channels whichrender the navigation difficult. Large steamers can ascend the Parana a thousand miles from the sea; the basin of the River Plate is estimated to contain a million and a quarter square miles of land, and the inland navigation which terminates at Buenos Ayres and Montevideo is said to be not less than ten thousand miles. The Paraguay may be considered the head and principal stream of the Plate system; its sources are only a few miles from those of the Madeira, and the two streams might be easily united by means of a canal.
A REFUGE FROM MOSQUITOES.
"We left Buenos Ayres on a boat drawing about ten feet of water, and rigged like an ocean steamer; we wondered what could be the use of the masts in river navigation, but found out before the voyage was over. Mosquitoes were thick and thirsty, but, like mosquitoes in other countries, they did not fly high in the air; when they were too numerous on deck for comfort, we climbed into the rigging and escaped their attentions. We advise all travellers who may follow us to provide themselves with mosquito nettings; and if they have preference in steamers, to choose one that has rigging in which they can find shelter. The cabins are apt to be disagreeably warm, and, besides, one does not like to be shut up there in the evening, when he can find a spot where the night air can be enjoyed without the presence of the winged pests of South America."
"The terms Argentine Republic and River Plate are misnomers," said Frank, in his journal; "Argentine Republic means 'Republic of Silver,' and 'Rio de La Plata' has the same significance applied to the great stream. There is no silver on the banks of the river or anywhere near it; argentiferous deposits have been found in the mountainous parts of the country, but they have not been worked to any extent. The wealth of the republic is in the fertility of the soil, and its grazing facilities. Precious or other metals do not figure in the exports, which are almost entirely confined to hides, beef, horns, tallow, and wool.
"After passing the mouth of the Uruguay we were frequently quite near the shore, and could see great herds of cattle grazing wherever the country was open. We stopped at one of theestancias, or cattle estates; an accident to the machinery detained us several hours, and we accepted the invitation of one of the guachos to ride out about a mile from the landing and witness the operation of branding cattle.
"It was conducted without any regard to the feelings of the animal which received the brand. He was singled out from his fellows by one of thevaqueros, or herdsmen, who was mounted on a swift horse and equipped with a lasso, a long rope with a noose at the end. The lasso was thrown over the horns of the victim, or, perhaps, over one of his fore-legs; in either case it brought him to the ground, or enabled the vaquero to lead him to where several men stood ready for their share of the work.
BRANDING CATTLE ON AN ESTANCIA.
"They held him firmly on the earth, and then the branding-iron, which had been heated to redness, was applied to his hide, and held there with such force that it burned in deeply. The bellowing of the poor brute was unheeded; when the iron was removed he was allowed to rise and gallop off to his companions, and he lost no time in doing so. Then the iron was returned to the fire and made ready for the next victim, and so the operation went on with great rapidity. The mark of the brand is indeliblenot only while the animal lives, but after his hide has passed through the hands of the tanner.
USE OF THE LASSO AND BOLAS.
"Another weapon of the vaquero is thebolas, which consists of two balls joined by a leather thong six or eight feet in length; they areusually round stones, or balls of iron or lead, and in either case are covered with leather, which is attached to the thong. They are swung round the head until they attain great velocity, and then hurled at the animal; they twist around his legs, and bring him to the ground, or, at all events, hamper his speed so that he can be overtaken.
"Another kind of bolas consists of three balls united by thongs to a common centre; they are more difficult to handle than the other sort, and are chiefly used for hunting the guanaco and ostrich on the plains in the southern part of the republic, and in Patagonia. Fred and I tried to usethe bolas, the ordinary kind, but we found that it went generally in the opposite direction from what we intended. One of the guachos showed us how to do it, and set us to trying to 'bolear' a stake driven in the ground ten yards away. We didn't hit the stake a single time, but we should assuredly have brought each other down if we had not stood at safe distances apart. When a novice is practising, the guachos require that he shall be far out of any possibility of reaching them by a stray shot.
"'Now see how I'll do it,' said one of the guachos, as he started in pursuit of a steer that was escaping from the herd.
"While the animal was at full gallop the bolas went twining around his hind-legs, bringing him to a dead halt, but without injuring him in the least. The guacho repeated the performance two or three times in succession, and showed that he was thoroughly skilled in the use of the weapon, which he launched with terrible swiftness and unerring accuracy.
"The hunters in Patagonia generally carry no other weapons than the lasso and the bolas in their pursuit of the guanaco and ostrich. Wild horses are tripped up with the bolas and then secured with the lasso, and sometimes the leaden ball, hitting a horse fairly on the forehead, will bring him to the ground as lifeless as though shot through the heart.
"When the repairs to the engines were completed a gun was fired by the steamer, and we galloped back to the landing. We steamed on until late in the evening, passing alternate stretches of forest and open ground, and on two or three occasions feeling the sand-bars with our keel. This mode of sounding was not to the liking of the captain and pilot, and so we anchored until morning.
"For the first two hundred miles of its course as we ascend it the Parana is a labyrinth of islands and channels; they are so numerous as to bewilder the novice, and even the old pilots say they are often perplexed by the multiplicity of ways open to them. The islands are covered with fruit trees, from which the markets of Buenos Ayres and Montevideo are supplied, and they overhang the water so that in some places a boat may be loaded without its occupant stepping on shore. The forests are gay with flowers in bloom, the air is filled with fragrance, little pools and nooks in the islands are covered with aquatic plants, and the luxuriance of vegetation is so great that we were continually reminded of the lower Amazon.
"If only the mosquitoes had let us alone we should have found the journey one of the most interesting we have ever made.
"The country is rapidly filling up with inhabitants, who come from all parts of Europe, as already mentioned, but there is yet an immense area that awaits settlement. We ask for the Indians, but have difficulty in findingthem; at various times they have had quarrels with the settlers, but soon found it was better to remain on terms of peace. As the country has been occupied with farms and cattle-ranches, they have found a scarcity of game which has led them to retire into the interior. They are rarely seen on the lower part of the river, except where they have hired out as herdsmen to the owners of the cattle estates, the only kind of labor they are willing to engage in.
COSTUMES OF PARAGUAY.
"But as we go on we find the river narrower, its banks higher, and the islands less numerous. Two hundred miles from the mouth of the Parana proper, and four hundred from the ocean, we came to Rosario, and remained several hours. The city surprised us by its extent and attractive features. In 1854 it was a wretched town with a few hundred huts, and perhaps three thousand inhabitants; now its population numbers fiftythousand, and it is next to Buenos Ayres in commercial importance. It is a port of entry for ships of all nations.
"We saw steamers from half the countries of Europe, and especially from England, taking in their cargoes at Rosario. It has fine and well-paved streets, which are provided with gas and railways, and lined with houses that would do honor to any city of its size in North America; ships of any draught may lie close up to the high bluff on which it stands, and there is no occasion for building expensive docks. There are several railways running to the interior of the republic, and one of them is intended to traverse the Andes, and connect with the Chilian lines to the Pacific coast.
"The Salada, the first great tributary of the Parana from the west,joins the main stream about three hundred and fifty miles above its mouth. We made several stops at towns and cattle estates between Rosario and Corrientes, which is a prosperous place on the east bank of the Parana, just below its junction with the Paraguay River. It is a port of entry, like Rosario, and has a good deal of foreign commerce; many German and English merchants are established here, and are getting almost a monopoly of the foreign trade.
INDIANS OF THE "GRAN CHACO."
"At Corrientes we saw several Chaco Indians, who are the aboriginals of this region. The country on the west bank is known asEl Gran Chaco; and though part of it has been settled, there is a very large region still in the hands of the Indians. Unlike their brethren lower down, they remain independent or nearly so; they do not disturb the whites unless first interfered with, and then they are ready for battle. Many a soldier of Paraguay and the Argentine Republic has fallen before their lances and arrows in the last fifty years.
"One day, when the steamer was running close to the west bank of the river, we saw a group of horsemen darting among the trees. Inspection with our glasses showed them to be Indians, and the captain confirmed our observation. As we went slowly on they got up a sort of race with the steamer, and gave us a good chance to see them. All were on horseback, men, women, and children; they had neither saddles norbridles, but guided their horses with thongs, which were fastened around the lower jaws. They shouted and gesticulated for us to stop, but we had no business with them, as they had nothing which the steamer's people wanted to buy.
BATTLE WITH CHACO INDIANS.
"They are formidable enemies in war, as they are fearless and skilled horsemen, quite the equals of the Comanches or other wild men of our western plains. In their fights with the Paraguayan troops they have been known to stand up on the backs of their horses to resist an attack; just as the attacking force was within shooting distance they droppedastride of their animals, and with wild whoops dashed forward, creating a stampede among the frightened horses of their enemies, and making a scene of wild disorder.
INDIANS OF THE LENQUA, RIVER PLATE.
"Lieutenant Page of the United States Navy explored the Parana and Paraguay rivers and their tributaries in 1854, and visited some of these Indian tribes. He describes the Angaité tribe as a people of remarkable stature, many of them exceeding six feet in height, and all finely formed and athletic. The old Jesuits give wonderful accounts of the great age to which these people live; they say that if one dies at eighty he is said to have been cut off in the flower of his existence. Men of a hundred years old will mount fiery horses and subdue them, and some of these people have reached the extraordinary age of one hundred and twenty years! One of their chiefs, when asked how old he was, said he did not know, but he was married and had a son when the church at Asuncion was built. As the church was then one hundred and five years old the warrior had a ripe old age, supposing, of course, he told the truth.
INDIANS SHOOTING FISHES.
"They are skilful with the lasso and bolas, and also with their spears and bows. The whites try to prevent their obtaining fire-arms, but somehow they manage to get them through traders, and are not slow in learninghow to use them. They shoot fishes in the streams with their bows and arrows, and though a fish may be three or four feet under water they rarely fail to pierce him. As with most Indian tribes, the men engage in hunting and breaking horses, and leave all the drudgery to the women.
"Passing the mouth of the Parana, we ascended the Paraguay River to Asuncion, the capital of the republic and its principal city. It has suffered terribly in the wars which Paraguay has waged with her neighbors, but is now fairly prosperous; if the country will not go to war again Asuncion may hope for a satisfactory future, as it has a good position, and is connected with the interior by a line of railway nearly two hundred miles long. We have heard many stories about the war which lasted from 1865 to 1870, and was very near making a complete ruin of Paraguay. Perhaps this is a good place to say something about it.
"General Lopez, who was then president and commander-in-chief of the armies, revived some old disputes with Brazil and the Argentine Republic concerning the boundaries between Paraguay and those countries. He began hostilities by capturing a Brazilian steamer which was passing Asuncion on a peaceful mission, and seizing two Argentine steamers near Corrientes. Then he surrounded that town with his army and threatened its capture, and he sent assistance to some revolutionists in Uruguay who were trying to overthrow the government of that country.
"The result of all this was that the three countries made war upon Paraguay, and they agreed not to stop fighting until they had completely conquered it, and made it powerless to go to war again. They carried out their programme completely; Asuncion was occupied, the army was defeated in several battles, and General Lopez was killed, in March, 1870. Then peace was declared, but it found the country prostrated, burdened with a heavy debt, and reduced in territory. Before the war the population of Paraguay was about half a million; it was estimated that 170,000 men were killed during the struggle, or died of disease consequent upon it, and that 50,000 women perished by famine and exposure in the forestsand swamps. And all this for the ambition and avarice of one man, General Lopez!
A RIVER PORT DURING THE WAR.
"A gentleman who was here during the war tells us that all business was suspended, and the river was occupied by fleets of war-ships and gun-boats, and defended by forts. The few ports on the river were converted into military stations, and the expenditure of money and credit, as well as the loss of life, on both sides was something enormous. There were countless scenes of horror, such as are witnessed in every war, and the stories of bravery and cowardice, honor and treachery, devotion and suffering, would fill volumes. Before the war ended the soldiers of Lopez were barefooted, and almost without clothing, and many of their enemies were in an equally sorry plight. This gentleman visited the headquarters of Lopez one day, and found a soldier on duty there wearing nothing but a cloth around his waist and a cap on his head. Thus dressed, and with his gun on his shoulder, he paced in front of the general with the dignity of a Prussian grenadier.
HEADQUARTERS OF GENERAL LOPEZ.
"From all I can learn, I judge that the Paraguayan people fought bravely and suffered terribly, and were overpowered by superior numbers. Lopez appears to have been a man of pleasant manners in social life, but he had no care for the good of his country, and sacrificed all its intereststo his own purposes. Before the war broke out most of the commerce was in his hands; nothing could be imported or exported without his permission, and the payment of a tax which went into his pockets. He provoked the war in hope of establishing a kingdom, and failed, as he deserved to fail.
"The country has few manufactures, and the principal industries are agriculture and the raising of sheep, cattle, and horses. In agriculture, the exported articles are tobacco and yerba maté or Paraguayan tea; beef, mutton, hides, and wool are the products of the grazing lands which find their way to other countries, and there are some shipments of timber and fruit.
"Of late years an industry of a new kind has sprung up on the River Plate and its tributaries, the shipment of frozen meat to England and the continent of Europe. On our way up the river we stopped at one of the estancias where this business was conducted, and had a chance to see some of its details. The manager kindly took us through the establishment, and explained the various processes.
"The animals to be slaughtered and shipped—whether cattle or sheep—arekilled and dressed in the usual way. The beeves are divided into quarters, but the sheep are kept whole; in either case the meat is taken to a large room, where it is hung on racks, so that no two pieces shall come in contact with each other. This room is really an enormous refrigerator, and when it is filled the doors are shut tight, and the air within is cooled below the freezing-point by an artificial process.
"When the meat has been properly frozen, it is removed from the room and carried on board the steamer at the dock. This steamer has her hold arranged on the refrigerating system, with several inches of thick felt between double walls of planking, so that heat is conducted away very slowly. When the hold is filled the cooling apparatus is set in operation, and the temperature is lowered to about 33° Fahrenheit; the apparatus is kept at work during the entire voyage, and until the steamer delivers her cargo in Europe. The meat thus remains perfectly fresh, although the ship passes the equator and remains for days and days under a tropical sun.
"Meat is very cheap in South America and very dear in Europe. The managers of the new enterprise claim that they have met with complete success, and will soon be able to feed the whole of Europe on beef and mutton grown on the pampas of South America. They have many prejudices to overcome, besides the opposition which the graziers and butchers of the Old World are making to the prospect of having their home industries ruined by these importations.
PARAGUAYAN MOTHER AND DAUGHTERS.
"We wanted to ascend the Paraguay to its head-waters, but circumstances did not permit, and we turned back from Asuncion. We went to the end of the railway, and had a delightful ride through a diversified country; forest, pampas, hills, valleys, mountains, and plains alternated rapidly, and gave us a succession of surprises. Numerous herds of cattle and horses told of the wealth of the country in live-stock, and if we had not seen the herds we should have known of the prevailing industry by the piles of hides that awaited shipment at the railway stations.
"We are in the land ofyerba maté, or Paraguay tea, and have drunk nothing else at breakfast and other meals; of course, we have tried it frequently in our journeyings in South America, but have never adhered closely to it until now. Perhaps you would like to know more fully about it.
A LANDED PROPRIETOR.
"Well, everybody drinks it, or, rather, sucks it, as the leaves are broken into powder while drying, and not preserved whole, like Chinese tea-leaves. Fred and I have provided ourselves withbombillas, as the tubes are called, after the custom of the European residents, and whenever the cup is circulating we come in for our share. The dry powder is poured into a cup or bowl and covered with boiling water; when it has stood long enough for the infusion to be drawn it is sucked through the bombilla, precisely as people in New York take lemonades through straws.
CUPS AND TUBES FOR MATÉ.
"The natives pass the cup and tube from one to another, but the European residents generally carry tubes of their own, and only the cup is passed around. The tube may be a reed or a straw, or of metal or glass, according to the fancy of the owner; ours are of glass, and we carry them in cases to prevent their being broken.
"Everybody drinksmaté, and the Europeans who come here take to itwith the greatest readiness. It has the same refreshing qualities as are found in tea and coffee; the chemists say it containscaffeineandtheine, together with caffeo-tannic acid, and it is sometimes recommended by physicians for their patients. We are told that there is no part of the world where Chinese tea is consumed by the inhabitants in as great a proportion as is maté by the South Americans. It is taken at meals and between meals; at all hours of the day and night, and also between those hours.
"And now for the plant. Its scientific name isIlex Paraguayensis; it is a species of holly, growing on the banks of rivers in Paraguay and in the mountains of Brazil and Bolivia. It reaches a height of fifteen or twenty feet, and its leaves are four or five inches long, with serrated edges. The leaves are dried by artificial heat on a network of small poles, over a hard, earthen floor; when thoroughly roasted they are beaten with sticks until reduced to the powder I have already mentioned, when they fall through the network to the floor.
"This powder is collected and packed in bags of hide; each bag holds about two hundred pounds of maté, and in this condition it is shipped to market. About five million pounds of maté are sent every year from Paraguay to other South American countries, but very little goes to North America or to Europe. The outside world has not yet learned of its virtues to any appreciable extent.
"'Do you sweeten it as you do Chinese tea?' I hear some one asking.
"Generally you do not. The natives almost never do, but some of the Europeans, who were accustomed to sweetened tea in their old homes, put a little sugar in the maté. Others put in a slice of lemon, just as the Russians do with their tea; Fred and I have taken our maté plain, and like it very much."
"During our return to Buenos Ayres," continued Frank, "we went a short distance up the Parana, which is longer than the Paraguay River, but smaller in volume. Its banks are higher and more picturesque, but the country bordering the two streams appears to be pretty much the same. The river can be ascended a long distance; in the upper part itcan only be navigated by boats of light draught, as it spreads over sand-bars, and is shallow in many places.