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Updated: June 23, 2025
M. Forgues, introduced to General Vedia, who commands the Argentine forces in Paraguay, is invited by that officer to go with him to Villa Occidental, a town situated a few miles above Asuncion on the river, and capital of the new province of Gran Chaco, claimed by the Argentine Confederation. He accepts.
Then M. Forgues and his companion leave the scene of the gambling orgie and look on another phase of life in Paraguari after dark. Not far distant is a lighted stable-lantern on the ground: around it, with a confused medly of ponchos and white skirts flying in the air, goes on the merry dance to the sound of an organ's whining notes.
Santa Fé is a remarkably indolent town the most indolent in the world, says M. Forgues. Its chief features are its great plaza, its church and the palace of the governor of Gran Chaco. Back of the country occupied by the colonists begins the land of the Chaco Indians.
M. Forgues is of course General Vedia's guest for the night. As he is about to dismiss the soldier who has conducted him to his chamber, which is on the ground-floor of the house, an unexpected visitor glides into the room through the open door. This visitor is a snake three feet long.
In coming to Asuncion, M. Forgues had taken on himself a commission far more troublesome than that of collecting the money due to the commercial house with which he was connected; and this was to deliver into the hands of the French chargé d'affaires at Buenos Ayres, the comte A. de C , who happened to be at the time in Asuncion, the despatch-bag of the legation, which had been consigned to his care by the French consul in the former city.
Under another shed a young girl with a complexion like bronze is seated before a loom weaving, with a light and elegant shuttle, a hammock out of the cotton thread of the country. Evening is about deepening into night when M. Forgues arrives at Villa Rica.
Continuing his journey the next day, with his host of Yakaguazu added to the party, M. Forgues reaches the dwelling of an old and very rich Paraguayan, Vicente Fleytas, whose farm, happily spared the ravages of war, is a fair sample of what the farms of the country were in the days of Lopez. Fleytas lives in patriarchal style, and he entertains his visitors most hospitably.
In consequence of a municipal election having gone in favor of the government candidates by a majority of thirty votes, a fresh insurrection had just broken out in the city, and when M. Forgues reached his destination he found the national troops in possession of Parana, which was closely besieged by the Blancos or "Whites," as the insurgents were called from their trappings, to distinguish them from the Colorados or "Reds," which was the name given to the Buenos Ayres party.
By some, indeed, his exaggerations were regarded as symptoms of mental alienation; and the originality of his verve did not succeed in giving a passport to the incoherence of his conceptions. "It has been said," remarked M. Forgues, with keen perception, "that an academician slumbers in the depths of every Frenchman; and it was this which prevented the success of Mark Twain in France.
Many of the houses have gone to ruin, dismantled piecemeal by passers-by, their owners never having come back from the battlefield to reoccupy them. The surrounding country is charming, and, seated on one side, M. Forgues sketches a cart drawn by oxen which goes by slowly with the declining sun shining on its leather top.
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