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Updated: June 19, 2025
As the climate is hot, a favorite occupation for men and women is to sit half-submerged in the river, smoking vigorously "The Paraguayans are an amphibious race, neither wholly seamen nor wholly landsmen, but partaking of both." All sleep in cotton hammocks, beds are almost unknown.
Finally, M. Forgues, toying with his revolver, proclaims that he and his companion are Frenchmen, and not Paraguayans, that no passports are necessary to travel in the country, and that they cannot be interfered with with impunity. At this a change comes over the magistrate.
Thus, when a body of men had been placed face to face with an infinitely superior force of the enemy, and were being mowed down in hundreds by deadly volleys at close range, a line of Paraguayans were frequently stationed at the rear of their own fighting forces, with the strictest orders to pour a volley into their comrades should they show any signs of retreat.
That the fight was a severe one is evident from the fact that the vessel I belonged to had 107 shots in her hull, and thirty-five out of seventy men killed and wounded. It was after we had thus forced ourselves into intercourse with the Paraguayans that I saw an instance of want of tact which struck me as most remarkable.
"The stories of their hardness, and perfidy, and immorality beggar description. As the Mahometans have their Mecca, so the Paraguayans have Caacupe; and the image of the Virgin in that village is the great wonder- worker. Prayers are directed to her that she will raise the sick, etc., and promises are made her if she will do this.
In circumstances such as these it is not to be wondered at that the ranks of the sublime Lopez dwindled and became thin to the point of extermination; nevertheless, the gaps were caused by death and disease rather than by desertion. One of the most pathetic circumstances of the campaign was the deep fidelity of the Paraguayans.
Halberger's first thought is that Valdez may be their prisoner; for he, of course, knows of the hostility existing between them and the Paraguayans, and remembers that, in his last interview with Naraguana, the aged cacique was bitter as ever against the Paraguayan people. But no; there is not the slightest sign of the white man being guarded, bound, or escorted.
Away from Ibitimi their course lies through a pretty forest, wherein the party is increased by the addition of two Paraguayans on horseback, one of them armed with a long sword, and of a Paraguayan woman, who rides her horse man-fashion.
Hereabout and above are spots made memorable by the obstinate defence of the late President Lopez and the brave endurance of his people. On the right are the famous batteries of Curupaiti, where Lopez with thirty thousand Paraguayans and one hundred and fifty cannon resisted for eight months the attempts of the united Brazilian and Argentine forces to turn him out.
We stopped at one tannery. The owner was a Spaniard, the manager an "Oriental," as he called himself, a Uruguayan, of German parentage. The peons, or workers, who lived in a long line of wooden cabins back of the main building, were mostly Paraguayans, with a few Brazilians, and a dozen German and Argentine foremen.
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