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From Paraguari our traveler's course next led him toward Villa Rica, a thriving town situated still farther in the interior, and near the Cordillera of Caaguazu. He sets out accompanied by his Swiss acquaintance. The journey is made in two days and on horseback.
It is a long course of maté-drinking varied with meals, the inevitable siesta and cigars. The maté is the popular beverage of the country, as it is of nearly the whole of South America. It is a tea of less fragrance but more strength than the Chinese product, and is made of the yerba, the leaf of the Paraguayan holly, which grows in immense profusion in the Cordillera of Caaguazu in the interior.
Directly south of the Brazils, between Parana on the east and Paraguay on the west, is the republic of Paraguay, lately ruled over by the two savage dictators, Francia and Lopez. It is a thickly-wooded region, with numerous streams running through it, and a lofty range the Cordillera de Caaguazu at the northern end. The inhabitants are mostly a mixed race of Spaniards and Indians.
The very name of the Cordillera of Caaguazu bears testimony to the abundance of the yerba, caa meaning maté in the Guaranian language, and guazu, "great" or "much." As seen from the elevation on which Villa Rica stands, this mountain-range, twelve leagues distant, stretches along the horizon an undulating mass of blue.
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