ASUNCION. THE CAPITAL OF PARAGUAY.
THE population of Paraguay and its products to-day are less than they were one hundred years ago, when the present half-ruined city was the capital of the southern half of the continent, and from it had been issued the ecclesiastical and vice-regal edicts for over two centuries. Then Asuncion was a gay and busy capital, and Buenos Ayres, with the rest of the continent, paid tribute to the viceroy there. After the war of independence, a Jesuit by the name of Francia secured control of the Government, and nothing but death was ever able to loosen his grip. Although the constitution was republican, Francia established himself as “Perpetual President,” maintained a despotism as absolute and cruel as any that ever existed, and erected around the country a wall that prevented immigration and kept the people in ignorance. Foreign commerce was monopolized by the President, and he exacted in the shape of tribute from the people the products he shipped away. The revenues of the Government went into his pocket, and public expenditures were made at his will. His policy seemed to be to isolate Paraguay from the rest of the world, for the good of its people; and being a religious fanatic, he taught them nothing but obedience to the will of the Church. For thirty-two years he ruled peacefully, and when he died, in 1840, he was sincerely mourned.
His successor was Lopez I., a man who had all the bad qualities of Francia, but none of his good ones. Selfish, lustful, brutal, his only motive was to perpetuate his power, and enjoy the opportunities it gave for the gratification of his passions. He continued the policy of exclusion which Francia inaugurated, but for entirely different reasons, considering it necessary for his own safety that the people should be kept ignorant and isolated, lest they might learn that there were justice and liberty elsewhere in the world. He ruled twenty-two years, until death took the sceptre from him and gave it to his son.
GASPAR FRANCIA,
First President of Paraguay.
If the father was bad, the son was worse, and Lopez II. seemed to be inspired with an ambition to excel his sire in every crime the latter had been guilty of. Filled with passion and lust, there was no form of cruelty he did not practise, and no act of brutality that he did not commit. He murdered his mother and brother, like King Thebaw, lest they might conspire against his authority. He had men pulled to pieces by horses, and invented a form of capital punishment before unknown to the catalogue of horrors. People who offended him were sewed up in green hides, which were hung up before a fire to dry. As the hides dried they shrunk, and the victim was slowly crushed to death by a pressure that human bones and flesh could not resist. The wives and daughters of his subjects were his playthings, and his agents were busy in all parts of the country collecting beautiful maidens to sacrifice to his lust. He resisted immigration, and, like his two predecessors, kept the foreign commerce of the country in his own hands. When steamers began to ascend the Parana River, he chained logs together and obstructed navigation, and when foreigners entered the country he drove them out.
STREET IN ASUNCION.
The only outlet for the interior provinces of Southern Brazil is through Paraguay, and the people of Brazil resented the obstruction to their commerce. The Argentine Republic and Uruguay also had grievances, and in 1868 the three great nations, representing about half the population of South America, called the tyrant Lopez to account. Then began a war which has no parallel in history. For six long years the little State of Paraguay held at bay the three combined nations whose territory surrounded it. The war did not end until the population of Paraguay was wellnigh exterminated, the country laid waste, and the tyrant Lopez driven to the mountains, where he was finally killed in a cave in which he sought refuge. The war cost Brazil, the Argentine Republic, and Uruguay two hundred and fifty million dollars and twenty thousand lives, while it cost Paraguay everything. There were scarcely enough survivors to bury the dead. The entire country was practically destroyed and depopulated.
LOPEZ, THE TYRANT.
AFTER THE WAR.
During the reign of the two Lopezes, father and son, the most intelligent and the best men in the country were banished. Exile was the penalty of all whose views differed from those of the tyrant, and who would not submit to his exactions. More were murdered than banished, and their families fled from the country. On the downfall of the despot the exiles returned with enlarged intelligence, broader views, and an education received in foreign lands which fitted them to restore their almost ruined country, and to establish something like a liberal and wise government. After the death of Lopez and the occupation of the country by the allied armies, a junta was formed, consisting of three citizens of Paraguay, two of whom had returned from banishment, and had taken part in the war against the tyrant. Their powers were provisional, and similar to those of the consuls of old Rome. These men called a constitutional convention, which organized a permanent government, based upon the plan of that of the United States. The constitution guarantees religious and civil liberty, security of person and property, prohibits the re-election of Presidents, endows the Congress with authority much more extended than that of ours, and in every possible manner provides against the repetition of the old dictatorships.
ASUNCION, FROM THE WEST.
One of the first steps taken by Congress was to encourage immigration, and agents were sent to Europe to organize colonies and offer inducements to settlers. There was a strong effort made to secure German colonies, but it was difficult to divert them from the United States. In Italy and the Basque provinces of Spain the emigrant agents were more successful, and about twenty thousand people from these countries have settled in Paraguay during the last four years. Their prosperity and the treatment they have received have been so encouraging that a steady stream of immigration is now flowing from all the European States towards
ASUNCION—THE PALACE AND CATHEDRAL.
Paraguay; and the German Government has lately sent a commission to explore the territory and report upon its advantages for the establishment of colonies. Liberal inducements are offered to all immigrants. The lands of the republic have been resurveyed and divided into three classes—timber, pastoral, agricultural. At the end of five years’ residence, each adult immigrant is entitled to a deed of eighty acres of the latter class as a gift from the Government, and is reimbursed from the public revenues to an amount equal to the cost of his passage to Asuncion, the necessary farming implements, and a yoke of cattle. In addition to these he has also the right to purchase not more than four extra lots of agricultural lands of forty acres each. The grazing lands are not given away, but are sold by the Government at the price of eight, twelve, and fifteen hundred dollars per square league, according to location, or are leased for a term of years at a nominal rental. The timber lands are sold at higher rates, but as yet there is little demand for them. The emigrants from Continental Europe usually settle upon the agricultural lands, but large areas of the pampas are being taken up by English, Irish, and Scotch, some of whom purchase upon their own account, while others represent companies of considerable capital. The British will soon monopolize the pastoral industries of the La Plata countries, and Paraguay will be full of their cattle.
An enumeration made of his subjects by Lopez in 1857 showed the population of Paraguay to be 1,337,439; at the close of the war in 1873, a census demonstrated that this number had been reduced to 221,079 souls, of whom only 28,746 were men, 106,254 were women over fifteen years of age, and 86,079 were children, the enormous disproportion between the sexes, as well as the vast decrease of population, telling the results of the war. In 1876 there were 293,844 inhabitants, showing an increase of 72,765 in three years; and in 1879 the total was increased to 318,018, two-thirds of the adults being women. It is said that there are but three citizens of the United States in Paraguay—one white man who keeps a drug store, and two negroes, both of whom are reported to be fugitives from justice.
The Rio de la Plata, or the River Plate, as it is better known, is the widest stream in the world, and, with the exception of the Amazon, empties more water into the ocean than any other, draining a region of 1,560,000 square miles. With its tributaries, it affords more miles of navigation than all the rivers of Europe combined, and more than the Mississippi and its branches. The tide from the Atlantic reaches up a distance of two hundred and fifty-eight miles, and there is a depth of water sufficient to carry vessels of twenty-four feet draught one thousand miles into the interior.
Above the mouth of the Uruguay River, which forms the
WRECK OF THE OLD CATHEDRAL.
boundary line between the republic of that name and the Argentine Republic, the River Plate is known as the Parana, and is so called as far as its source, which lies not far from that of the Amazon in the interior of Brazil, and is fed through a thousand channels by the rains of the tropics and the melting snows of the Cordilleras. The Parana flows for one thousand two hundred miles through a country—the interior of Brazil—that has never been explored, and is inhabited by a race of savages who have so far resisted all attempts to invade their domain. As far as the river has been explored it is deep enough for navigation, although at present the steamers only run to Cuyabá, a distance of 2500 miles. At Corrientes the Paraguay River enters the Parana, and the two great streams form the western and eastern boundaries of the republic. At Asuncion the Paraguay divides again, the main stream flowing through the centre of the State, and the Pilcomayo continuing as its western boundary. The Paraguay River is navigable for 1200 miles, and the Pilcomayo for nearly as great a distance, almost to the mountains of Bolivia. The chief affluents of the Pilcomayo are the Pilaya and Paspaya; and the only city on its banks is Chuquisaca. With the removal of obstructions which offer no obstacles to engineering skill, it is said that the Pilcomayo might be put in such shape as to afford an easy and convenient outlet for the products of Bolivia to the Atlantic ports, and investigations are already in progress looking to that end.
Whoever obtains control of these natural lines of communication, and supplements them by railways, will hold the key to the treasures of the heart of South America, whose value has furnished food for three centuries of fable. A section of country as large as that which lies between the Mississippi River and the Rocky Mountains lies there practically unexplored. On its borders are rich agricultural lands, fine ranges, unmeasured resources of timber, the diamond-fields of Brazil, and the gold and silver mines of Bolivia and Peru. What exists in the unknown region is a matter of speculation, but the farther man has gone the greater has been his wonder. The tales of explorers who have attempted to penetrate it sound like a recital of the old romances of Golconda and El Dorado; but the swamps and the mountains, the rivers that cannot be forded, and the jungles which forbid its search, the absence of food, and the difficulty of carrying supplies, with the other obstacles which now prevent exploration, will be overcome eventually, and the secret which has tantalized the world for three centuries will be disclosed by scientists. Almost every year expeditions are sent into the wilderness by the Government of the Argentine Republic, and each one goes farther than the last, so that the prospect of a thorough exploration is encouraging.
STATION ON THE ASUNCION RAILWAY.
The commerce of Paraguay is small, although rapidly increasing, and at present is absorbed in that of Uruguay and the Argentine Republic. There is one railroad in the country, which was built by Lopez II. for the transportation of troops, and runs a distance of forty-five miles, from Asuncion to Paraguay, an interior town of some importance. In 1877 the railroad was sold to an English corporation for a million dollars, but has not been well maintained. A street-car line connects the railway-station with the steamboat landing at Asuncion. There are two lines of steamers to Asuncion, one from Buenos Ayres and one from Montevideo. It is a journey of 1700 miles, and usually requires about fifteen days, as the stops along the route are numerous, and a great deal of time is taken up in loading and unloading. The steamers on this route are as good as any that ever floated upon the Mississippi River, and are fitted up in the most elegant style. They compete actively for passengers and furnish excellent meals and accommodations. One line sails under the French flag, and the other belongs to an Argentine company.
A VISIT TO THE SPRING.
The Government is making an honest and patient effort to educate and enlighten the people, and in comparison with its poverty and scanty revenues, is expending a large amount of money in maintaining a system of free schools; but until teachers are imported from abroad little progress will be made, as the native instructors are incompetent.
The change from the tyranny of Lopez to the present liberal, enlightened, and progressive administration was as sudden and radical as a change from darkness to light. The people have accepted the blessings with a genuine appreciation of their value, and have devoted themselves assiduously to the restoration of their country, and are happy in the enjoyment of peace.
The President of the republic is Dr. Caballaro, a man of education and broad intellect. He has travelled in Europe, and during the reign of Lopez II. was an exile, spending most of his time in the Argentine Republic. He has a Cabinet of three ministers, and his Secretary of State was educated in the Methodist Mission at Buenos Ayres. The latter gentleman is a Protestant, understands English well, and is a man of the most progressive ideas. It is largely owing to his efforts that Paraguay is making such rapid progress; and as he is the ruling spirit of the Government, he will probably be the next President.
THE PARAGUAYANS AT HOME.
The people are quiet, submissive, and industrious, having a mixture of Spanish blood and that of the Guarani Indians, who were the aboriginal settlers of the country. Their kinsmen across the Paraguay River, in the Argentine Republic, were a nomadic, savage tribe; but the tyranny of Lopez, father and son, took the spirit out of the Paraguay Indians, and they are now domesticated, and live in bamboo huts, cultivate the soil, and raise cattle. There is said to be less crime in Paraguay than in any other of the South American countries, and in 1883 there were but one hundred and twenty-five criminal trials in the entire republic, twenty-one of the defendants being foreigners. But for the tyranny of its rulers in past years Paraguay might have been an Arcadia, for the simple habits, the few wants, and the peaceable disposition of the people made them contented and well disposed towards each other. As nature has provided for all their wants, they have no great incentive to labor, and the enterprise and thrift of the country is generally found among the foreigners, from whom the people are, however, rapidly learning the ways of the world and the value of money. The men and women are of small stature, and the latter are usually very pretty when young, but lose their beauty of feature and figure after maternity. They are innocent, and childish in their amusements, are fond of dancing and singing, and have native dances that are as graceful, and native songs that are as melodious, as are the dances and music of the negroes of the United States.
PARAGUAY FLOWER-GIRL.
PARAGUAY FLOWER-GIRL.
Asuncion, the capital of the republic, is the oldest settlement in what is known as the valley of the River Plate. There were a considerable number of people there, and it was the seat of civil and religious authority, before the city of Buenos Ayres or the city of Rio de Janeiro was founded. There was a time when Asuncion was the greatest city in that part of the world, being the seat of the viceroys of Spain and the centre of a great commercial business. But after the independence of the republic, and during the reign of the despots Francia and Lopez, father and son, who for sixty years exercised despotic sway over the country, all immigration was shut out, and the people of the country were not permitted to leave it lest they should learn ideas of civilization and liberty that would excite them to revolution. At that time Asuncion was a city of seventy-five thousand inhabitants, but during the war it was almost depopulated, and three-fourths of the buildings are now in ruins.
REMAINS OF THE PALACE OF LOPEZ.
REMAINS OF THE PALACE OF LOPEZ.
In all tropical countries nature soon repairs or conceals the traces of man’s wanton devastation. Fields corpse-strewn and blood-bathed, blackened with fire and trampled by the hoofs of cavalry horses, within six months’ time wave in the golden luxuriance of a harvest; and the villages of the peasants, built of bamboo and palm-leaves, are quite as soon restored. Paraguay’s rural territory shows no signs of the nine years’ war and devastation; but in Asuncion and other cities the case is different. Its spacious edifices, costly churches, and public buildings are in ruins. Some which still stand are disused and deserted, more are only partially occupied, and are in a state of half neglect, too large for the shrunken populace; others, sad monuments of the vanity of the Dictators, are shattered and shamefully defaced. Whole streets are lined by empty shells of what were once costly dwellings, with here and there open gaps that tell of the pillage and devastation that follow war.
The most conspicuous object in Asuncion is the immense palace of Lopez, which covered four acres, and was completed at an enormous cost of money and labor, wrung from an unwilling people shortly before the fall of the tyrant. It is now an empty, roofless shell, towering, like one of the ruined castles in Europe, over the river. With its long rows of dismantled windows and black, ragged holes, it is as ghastly as the eye-sockets in a decaying skull. Its shattered towers, shivering cornices, and broken parapets disclose the results of a three weeks’ bombardment, and the destruction that followed its capture. The Brazilian plunderers carried off all that was portable; what they could not take away was burned, and what fire would not consume was defaced. The palace is said to have cost two million dollars, and was built exclusively by native workmen. The men are very skilful in the use of tools, and in the manufacture of gold and silver ornaments, and the women make a very fine lace which is called nanduty. The lace-making art was taught the women by the Spanish nuns. They do not use cotton thread, but the very fine fibres of a native tree, which are as soft and lustrous as silk. Some of their designs are very beautiful, and the fabric is indestructible. Lopez had his chamber walls hung with this lace, on a background of crimson satin, and the pattern was an imitation of the finest cobweb. It is said to have required the work of two hundred women for several years to cover the walls, and that every one of those women was a discarded mistress of the despot. The lace is fastened to the wall by clamps of solid gold of the most unique workmanship. There are four hundred of these clamps, each worth from twelve to fifteen dollars.
INTERIOR OF THE LOPEZ PALACE.
Near by the palace are the roofless walls of a spacious unfinished theatre, an example of Lopez’s extravagance. The cathedral, and the Church of the Incarnacion, where Francia sought, but did not find, a final resting-place, are heavy, ungraceful constructions of Spanish times. Nor have the Government buildings—many of which sheltered the terrible Dictator, for he continually shifted from one to another, for fear, it is said, of assassination—any pretension to beauty. Neither are the remains of the old Jesuit college, now converted into a barrack, anyway remarkable. The streets, wide and regular, are ill paved and deep in sand, while the public squares are undecorated and bare. On the other hand, the dwelling-houses—at least such of them as are constructed on the old Spanish plan, so admirably adapted to the requirements of the climate—are solidly built and not devoid of beauty. They have cool courts, thick walls, deeply recessed doors and windows, projecting eaves, and heavy, protected roofs.
THE CATHEDRAL, ASUNCION.
The furniture of the dwelling-houses is of native wood-work, solid, and tastefully carved. The pavement is generally of marble local or imported. The hard woods of the native forests are susceptible of high polish and delicate work, and the marbles, of various kinds and colors, are not inferior in beauty to any that Italy herself can boast of; and these will, when Paraguay is herself once more, take a high place on the list of her productions and merchandise.
MARKET-PLACE AT ASUNCION.
The majority of the houses are one-storied; but in some localities, where a mania for European imitation, encouraged by Lopez, prevailed, some uncomfortable and ill-seeming dwellings of two or three stories, flimsy, pretentious, and at variance alike with the climate and the habits of the people of Paraguay, have been erected.
The most cheerful, and almost the only active part of
A PARAGUAY HORSEMAN.
Asuncion is the market-place, which is situated near the centre of the town. It is a large square block of open arcades and pillared roofs, to which the natives from the suburbs daily bring their produce, intermixed with other wares of cheap price and of every-day consumption, the vendors being almost exclusively women. Maize, watermelons, gourds, pumpkins, oranges, mandioca flour, sweet potatoes, half-baked bread, cakes, biscuits, and sweets—the chief articles of food—are here offered for sale, together with tobacco of dark color and strong flavor, and yerba, the dried and pulverized leaf of the Paraguayan tea. Alongside of these are displayed a medley of cheap articles, for use or ornament, mostly of European manufacture; and here may be found matches, combs, cigarette paper, pots and pans, water-jars, rope, knives, hatchets, small looking-glasses, handkerchiefs, ponchos, and native saddles much resembling Turkish ones, which are very comfortable for riding, and are loaded with coarse silver ornaments. But the chief interest of the scene is the study of the buyers and sellers themselves. The men, who mostly belong to the former class, are from the villages round about, and come mounted on small, rough-coated horses, which are unclipped of mane or tail. The rider’s dress consists of a pair of loose cotton drawers, coarsely embroidered or fringed with lace, and over them and around the waist are many-folded loin-cloths, generally of white; or it may consist of a pair of loose, baggy trousers, much like those worn by the Turkish peasants, and girt by a leather belt of generous width. These, with a white shirt often loaded with lace, and over all a striped or flowered poncho, complete the dress. Boots are rarely worn, and the bare feet are sometimes equipped with immense silver-plated spurs. The features and build of the riders present every variety of type, from the light-complexioned, brown-haired, red-bearded, honest manliness of the ancestral Basque, to the copper-hued, straight black-haired, narrow dark eyed, beardless chinned, flattened nosed, and small wiry framed aboriginal Guarani.
PARAGUAY BELLES.
The women are scantily, and in more civilized countries would be considered immodestly, clad, wearing nothing but a white tunic of native cotton, tied around the waist with a girdle of some gay color, often handsomely embroidered. These tunics are usually fringed at the top and bottom with native lace, and are always scrupulously clean. Cleanliness is the rule in Paraguay, and it extends to everything—dwellings, furniture, clothes, and person. Each house in the country has behind it a garden, small or large, as the case may be, in which flowers are sedulously cultivated. Flowers are a decoration that a Paraguayan girl or woman is rarely without. The women are pretty and often handsome. Dark eyes, long, wavy, dark hair, and a brunette complexion most prevail; but the blond
COSTUMES OF THE INTERIOR.
type, with blue eyes and golden curls, indicative of Basque descent, is by no means rare. Their hands and feet are almost universally delicate and small, and their forms, at least till frequent maternity has sacrificed beauty to usefulness, are simply perfect. The people seem to be always good-natured, the women particularly, who laugh, chat, and joke among themselves and with their customers, and are courteous and generous. Unlike many of their South American neighbors, they are as honest as they are gentle. A brighter, kinder, truer, more affectionate, and more devotedly faithful person than the Paraguayan girl exists nowhere. The women are more regardful of their beauty than in other countries, and the Paraguayan girl is never without a bit of decoration, ear-rings, a necklace, a bunch of flowers, or something of that sort; but they all smoke, young and old.
AN INTERIOR TOWN.
Some of the native ceremonies are peculiar and beautiful. When a couple are married, the bridal bed is always covered with flowers, and each neighbor contributes something towards giving them an outfit, even if it is nothing but a wooden spoon or a gourd cup. Their funerals are conducted after the ordinary formula of the Roman Catholic Church, but it is customary to hold a sort of wake over the dead, as in Ireland. Their market-days occur twice a week, and on Sunday there is the largest gathering and the greatest display, the people coming together after mass in the morning, and remaining about the plaza all day, enjoying a sort of festival which invariably closes in the evening with a dance. The dances are usually of the European kind—quadrilles, waltzes, polkas, mazourkas, and lanciers, interspersed with Paraguayan figures—the cielo, the media caña (a great favorite, and very lively), the Montenero, and some variations which were inherited from the aboriginal races. Cigars, cigarettes, sweets, refreshments, drinks—among which last caña, the rum of the country, comes foremost—are freely distributed in the intervals of the dances, and the ball is kept up till morning light. The women, seated around the room, each waiting her turn to dance, while the men gossip in groups outside the door, are dressed in Paraguayan fashion, with the long white tupoi, or tunic, which is deeply embroidered around the borders, and is often fringed with the beautiful home-made lace of the country; sometimes with silk skirts or brightly colored petticoats, and a broad colored sash; some of them wearing slippers, others barefooted.
HOME, SWEET HOME.
THE MANDIOCA.
The country about Asuncion is the very perfection of quiet rural beauty. The scenery resembles the prettiest parts of New England, enhanced by the richness of the verdure of the palm-trees with which the whole country is studded. The cultivated land is divided into fenced fields, wherein grow maize, mandioca, and sugar-cane, and the cottages dotted about complete the pleasantness of the picture. There are roads in every direction—not kept in first-rate condition, but still good; the cross-roads, which are not so much worked, are beautiful green lanes of considerable width, and for the most part perfectly straight. In some places the country presents the appearance of a splendid park.
The attractions of Paraguay are its agricultural and pastoral resources; and the timber-lands are said to be the finest in the world, the forests being situated in the northern part of the republic, and reaching an unmeasured distance into the heart of Brazil—as far as the Amazon River to the northward, and far into the mountain regions of Bolivia to the eastward.
Between Paraguay and the Andes stretches a vast country known as “El Gran Chaco,” a region almost unexplored, and which offers fine grazing land and excellent pasture for cattle, besides the timber along the streams which water it profusely. Several enterprising colonists, English and German, have gone in there and opened sugar plantations, producing enormous crops; and the time will soon come when a large portion of the sugar supply of South America will be derived from this source. The land of Paraguay is said to be unusually good for sugar, but the chief products nowadays are mandioca, mate, and fruit. During the war with Uruguay, Brazil, and the Argentine Republic, nearly all the cattle were slaughtered; but new stock has been introduced, and very large droves are now being pastured upon the ranges. The fruits comprise nearly everything that is grown in the tropical or semi-tropical zones. The oranges are said to be the finest in the world, and the pineapples compare with those of Ecuador, which surpass anything raised upon the western coast of South America. There are other very rich and wholesome fruits, but the country is so far inland that they will never be exported.
The mandioca is a root resembling the yam, from which is produced the tapioca of commerce. Life and death are blended in the plant, but every part of it is useful if properly treated, and is as essential to the domestic economy of Brazil and Paraguay as rice is to China, or as potatoes are to Ireland. It is served at every meal, from that taken from the dinner-pail of the laborer to the banquet of the grandees, just as bread is with us, and is made into as many forms of food as our flour. There are four species of mandioca, but they differ
OX CART ON THE PAMPAS.
only as one kind of apple differs from another, all serving the same general purpose. The plant grows about four feet in height, and resembles the tomato in its foliage. The stalk and leaves are excellent fodder for cattle, and are often dried and used for their medicinal properties by the old women of Paraguay. When eaten raw the root is a deadly poison. Thirty-five drops of the juice were once administered as an experiment to a negro who was under sentence of death, causing speedy dissolution after five minutes of horrible convulsions. This poison is mysteriously removed or neutralized by the application of heat, and the root can be boiled or baked like a yam or sweet-potato. When cooked it is almost pure starch, and contains ninety-five per cent. of nutritious properties, being in fact as well as in fancy the staff of life of the people. The roots are boiled, and are then ground in rude mills, producing a powder about the color of buckwheat flour. Tapioca is a refined mandioca, and is produced by a modern process, the flour being reduced to a paste by boiling, and then allowed to crystallize. Very little tapioca is manufactured in the country, but the raw product is shipped to other parts of the world where the tapioca of commerce is manufactured.
CURING YERBA MATE.
A drink called chicha is also made of mandioca by soaking the flour in water and letting it ferment. It has a taste very much like malt or yeast, and one glassful of it will last a lifetime for an American, although the native will drink it by the quart without injury. It is a rapid intoxicant, but leaves no deleterious effect, and the man who goes upon a chicha spree will not wake up with a headache the next morning. The chicha of Peru is made of the juice of the sugar-cane, and the chicha of Chili of the juice of the grape. All these drinks have a similar taste and a similar effect.
A SIESTA.
Although the Paraguayans use considerable chicha, they are not an intemperate people. This is largely due to their excessive fondness for their native tea, the yerba mate, which they prefer to any alcoholic drink, usually taking from ten to fifteen cups of it daily. It is a mild stimulant, but is not intoxicating. The yerba mate is drunk all over the southern half of South America, and is well adapted to the climate and the requirements of the people, having a cool effect in the warm weather, and a warm effect in the cold. The taste is very much like that of catnip tea, as it has a bitter herbal flavor that is disagreeable at first, but one comes to like it very soon. The South American would no more refuse a cup of yerba mate than a German would a glass of beer. Whenever he travels in foreign countries he always takes a supply along, for it cannot be obtained in the United States or in Europe. In the markets, by the road-side, in the gardens, and in the door-ways of their homes, as commonly as the Cuban with his cigarette or the Irishman with his dudeen, men and women can be seen at all hours of the day and night with a mate cup in their hands. Instead of having beer-gardens or wine-rooms, the people sit around the public places in Paraguay drinking mate; and it is one of the few cases in existence where a national habit of drinking improves the mental and physical condition of the people.
Yerba mate grows wild in Paraguay in great copses, like hazel or cranberries, but its quality improves under cultivation. Its uses were originally discovered by the Jesuits, those inquisitive fellows who were always prying into the secrets of nature as well as the secrets of State and the souls of men. They were the best mining prospectors in South America, and were constantly exercising their botanical and chemical knowledge for the advantage of the people. The sappy twigs are picked from the bushes, and are hung on frames over a fire to dry. When they become crisp they are reduced to powder by being rubbed between the hands. This powder is packed for export in green hides, which shrink when exposed to the sun, and press the mate into a compact, solid mass. Everybody carries a mate-cup and a tube called a bombilla. The cups are usually ordinary gourds, but they are often made of cocoa-nut shells and the shells of other nuts, and are sometimes beautifully carved. The bombillas of the common people are bamboo stems with the pith punched out; but the wealthy people have them made of silver, and often of gold. The bamboo tubes are the most agreeable to use, as they do not conduct the heat so rapidly, and never scald the lips, as the silver ones do. The cups are half filled with powdered yerba mate, then boiling water is poured in. Delicate drinkers always throw away this water, and fill the cup again, as it is too bitter for their taste; but the habitual users of the weed consider the first water as the best, and keep pouring in water and sucking it through the tube until the strength of the powder is exhausted, when the refuse is thrown out and the cup is refilled.
The yerbales, or mate fields, of Paraguay are said to cover three million acres in their present state, and to produce an annual crop of thirty thousand tons. During the reign of the tyrants Francia and Lopez the exportation of mate was monopolized by the Government, and every citizen was
A PARAGUAY HOTEL.
compelled to pay as tribute-money a certain amount each year for the benefit of the despots, being driven to it by taskmasters, as were the children of Israel to the making of bricks in Egypt. But under the new regime the tea-forests have been leased to an Argentine firm, which pays a royalty of one dollar a ton to the Government. This concession was given when the Treasury was empty and the Government was greatly in need of money, so that what might have been a very productive source of income was sacrificed for a little cash in hand.
NATIVE PAPPOOSE AND CRADLE.
The export goes to the Argentine Republic, Uruguay, and Chili. Several attempts have been made to send it to Europe, but they were not successful. During early times the Queen of Spain prohibited the importation of yerba mate by her subjects, on the ground that it was productive of barrenness in women, but the rapidly increasing population of the River Plate countries, where it is used to the greatest extent, seems to prove the fallacy of her Majesty’s theory. In Uruguay, where the women are scarcely ever seen without a mate-cup in their hands, the vital statistics show a larger percentage of births than in any other country in the world; and there is something curious in the fact before-mentioned, that the number of males born in that country is so much greater than the number of females. No attempt has ever been made to introduce mate into this country, and the consumption of the article will probably always be confined to South America.
Paraguay tobacco is used all over South America. It is rank, black, and full of nicotine, but it makes a very good cigarette, being about as strong as the blackest Turkish tobacco, or “perique.” Everybody in Paraguay smokes—men, women, and children—and their cigarettes are made of the native tobacco and corn-husks. During the last few years several political refugees from Cuba have found a resting-place in Paraguay, and have experimented with native tobacco on the Cuban plan. These experiments have shown that, where properly cultivated and properly cured, this tobacco is as good as any raised in the West Indies; but the natives let it grow wild, and take no pains either in its cultivation or in the treatment of the leaves.
A HACIENDA.
The timber of Paraguay is very fine, and includes almost every variety known to arboriculture, from the finest light woods that may replace those of China and Japan to the heavy and tough varieties that sink in water like iron, and are indestructible. For lack of energy and saw-mills, the forests, so far, are almost untouched. The dwellings and other buildings of the country are made of adobe, and the small quantity of dressed lumber used there comes from Canada or from the United States. Two American saw-mills have recently been introduced, and the water-power is sufficient to operate them at a small expense. The timber regions are full of streams, which can be utilized for floating logs and rafts, and nature seems to have provided every facility for the development of their extensive resources.
PEOPLE OF “EL GRAN CHACO.”
Along the western border of Paraguay lies an immense territory, in some parts reported to be arid and waste for want of water, but in others filled with a succession of rivers, and destined in time to be one of the most valuable portions of the Argentine Republic. It is called “El Gran
AN ARMADILLO.
Chaco.” It extends from the Parana River to Bolivia, and is separated on the east from Paraguay by the river of the same name. It is divided by the river Vermijo into two almost equal parts, one called the “Chaco Austral” and the other “Chaco Boreal,” the latter extending to latitude 20° south, and bounded on the north by the Bolivian province of Chiquitos. The “Chaco Boreal” is an uninterrupted plain, elevated about four thousand feet above the level of the sea, and divided into the most beautiful forests, with intervening meadows, as if made purposely for the raising of cattle. The Austral or Southern Chaco lies between the Vermijo on the north, the Parana on the east, and the province of Santa Fé on the south. It is completely level, and is richly endowed by nature, not only with a deep soil, but with most magnificent forests. As yet these vast regions are almost exclusively occupied by wild Indians. A large portion has never been explored, and hence but little is yet known of the interior, or of its treasures of vegetable wealth. Only where it skirts along the Parana and Paraguay rivers, with here and there a small clearing and settlement, the nucleus of a number of agricultural colonies, has anything been scientifically determined in reference to its timber resources. The region possesses an immense advantage in great water-courses flowing along its eastern borders, and the smaller streams which penetrate its interior, and are navigable for many hundreds of miles. Thus all its vast wealth of precious woods and valuable timber is rendered accessible not only to Buenos Ayres, but as ocean ships can load along its banks, it is also accessible to the markets of the world, without the necessity of transshipment. The wood-choppers are at work, and the quantities of all kinds of precious woods shipped down the rivers are becoming greater and greater every year.
A RANCH ON EL GRAN CHACO.
The number of horned cattle in Paraguay is now estimated at six hundred thousand, and there is said to be pasturage for several million within the limits of the republic, and an unlimited area in El Gran Chaco beyond the timber regions on a plain similar to New Mexico, rising in great terraces or steppes to the foot-hills of the Andes. The elevation of this area above the sea is from four to eight thousand feet, and although it borders upon the tropics, it is said to be an excellent range, and the ranchmen of the Argentine Republic are contemplating it with covetous eyes. No industry pays so well in Paraguay as cattle-raising. The severe frosts and droughts which at times annoy the ranchmen of the Argentine Republic are unknown there; the streams are numerous and perennial, the cattle fatten quicker, attain greater weight, and afford a better quality of beef, owing to the nutritious grass and abundance of water. Young cattle, as before stated, may be bought in the Argentine Republic and transported by river steamer to Paraguay for twelve or thirteen dollars per head, and land can be purchased at about twenty cents an acre from the Government.
