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Ludwig looks a picture of astonishment; while, strange to say, on Cypriano's countenance the expression is more one of alarm! And the same on the face of the gaucho himself; for he, as the young Paraguayan comprehends the situation, and well knows what has brought their horses so abruptly to a halt. "What is it, Gaspar?" questions Ludwig, now also alarmed at seeing the others so.
On the afternoon of December 9 we left the attractive and picturesque city of Asuncion to ascend the Paraguay. With generous courtesy the Paraguayan Government had put at my disposal the gunboat-yacht of the President himself, a most comfortable river steamer, and so the opening days of our trip were pleasant in every way.
The vaqueano has passed the preceding night with the Indians at their camp, leaving it long before daybreak, though Aguara, for certain reasons, very much wished him to return with them to their town, and proposed it. A proposal, for reasons of his own, the cunning Paraguayan declined, giving excuses that but ill satisfied the young cacique, and which he rather reluctantly accepted.
The tyranny of Francia was one of the strangest which history records, no man ever ruling with more absolute authority and more capricious cruelty. For many years Paraguay was completely cut off by him from the rest of the world, much as Japan was until opened to civilization by Commodore Perry. Unlucky was the stranger who then dared set foot on Paraguayan soil.
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.
As far as I am aware, no Paraguayan has ever visited there. The missionaries wish their influence to be the only one in training the Indian mind. At the invitation of the missionaries, I was privileged to go there and see their work. A trail leads in from the river bank, but it is so bad that bullock carts taking in provisions occupy ten and twelve days on the journey.
They do as desired, and see what greatly surprises them. At least Cypriano is surprised; for the young Paraguayan, unlike his half-German cousin, unobservant of Nature generally, has never given a thought to any of its particular phenomena; and that now presented to his gaze is one of the strangest.
All agree with Mark Twain, that "the human skin is the most comfortable of all costumes," and, clothed in the sunlight, the human form divine is not unlovely. Sometimes the Indians of the interior take skins, etc., to the Paraguayan towns across the river. Not knowing the use of money, their little trading is done by barter.
As the train approaches its destination the passengers see in the distance the three cerros of Paraguari. These isolated sugar-loaf-shaped hills called cerros, covered with verdure, are a marked feature of Paraguayan scenery.
As you know yourself, Senor Aguara, one of our statutes is that no foreigner who marries a Paraguayan woman may take her out of the country without permission of the President our executive chief. Now this man is not one of our people, but a stranger a gringo from far away over the big waters; while the Senora, his wife, is Paraguayan, bred and born.
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