LETTER XIX. FROM humaitA to guardia tacuAra.
Guardia Tacuara, August 29, 1868,
My dear Z ,
I was not sorry to leave Humaita as soon
as its interest was sucked dry. Two men had deserted from
the Linnet, and doubtless joined the service ; one unfortu-
nately had been drowned^ and the steward was missing for
some days. All looked forward with anxiety to the next
six months. On the 26th of August the wet season began to
break up^ and the change was heralded by a storm of sheet
lightning. At 3 a.m. on the 27th there was a blaze of
forked lightning, which lit up the thick black clouds^ and
which was accompanied by loud, sharp thunderings, here
said to be rare. The United States screw-steamer Wasp, Lieutenant-Commander Kirkland, arrived in the evening, and steamed off for Asuncion. All was darkness and mystery : the soldier and the sailor politician are usually extra political. They are converts opposed to old churchmen, volunteers contrasted with the regulars. Although there is a letter- bag for the British detenus on board the Linnet, I could not find out their names, and, as for their numbers, it was succinctly and roundly said that the English-speaking em- ployes might number one hundred, and the total of foreigners one thousand.
The chart gives thirty-two miles between Humaita and
Tacuara ; but we shall cover fifty-two between 10 a.m. and
night. The current may average 1'5 knots per hour. Passing the Andai redoubt, we saw that the ditches were
864 FROM HUMAITA TO GUARDIA TACUARA.
â– filled^ the parapet was levelled^ the abatis was pulled up,, and
the garrison was being shipped off. After Timbiithe banks
became lower_, and were not so easily to be defended. About
noon we steamed past Tayi^ pronounced Taji : it is so
named from a tree also called the Lapacho,, one of the
BignoniacisBj which supplies a fine cabinet wood. Here on
the eastern bank were batteries subtending the normal
horseshoe : it had been judged necessary to dislodge from
them the Paraguayans in order to surround and completely
to cut off the communications of Humaita The line sweeps
to the east and forms a narrow; its tall barranca is about
one mile long^ and falls above and below into woods and
lowlands. Being shelving^ and not^ as usual_, perpendicular, it is easier to attack ; still it commands the mouth of the Bio Bermejo, and it sweeps the stream with a cross fire up and down from two to two miles and a half : the settle- ment shows nothing but a dwarf cross and a tall mangrullo on a bald point of land ; its few wattle and dab tents and hovelsj near the whitewashed church, are abandoned by all living things save the vulture. There is also a little bridge on the high road to the capital. At the far side of the river is the paddle-wheel of another small Paraguayan steamer sunk by the Brazilians.
Here again, on July 9, 1868, two ironclads, the Barroso
and the Rio Grande, were attacked by twenty-four canoes, each carrying ten " bogabantes," as the corps trained to such service was called. The affair repeated that of Humaita ; and the crew of the Rio Grande, when boarded by the enemy, shut themselves up under hatches, and the Barroso, which had been passed by the assailant, came up and cleared the decks of her consort with grape and canister. After this affair the Brazilians thought it wise to bar the stream with a boom.
We then passed a narrow gap in the eastern bank, an
FROM humaitA to guardia tacuAra. 305
entrance to the lagoon which forms a short cut to El Pilar. This feature is the '^ furado/' the *^ parana-mirim/' and the " ypoeira " of Brazilian rivers. In Lieutenant Day's chart it is laid down as the Rio and Guardia of Monte Rico, an error for La Monterita — the Little monte. At 12'40 p.m. we sighted that classical and important influent the Rio Bermejo (Red River), alias Rio Grande. Here, in 1528, " El buen Gaboto ^' first saw the savages adorned with gold and silver, and imagined the grand misnomer " Rio de la Plata." The valuables, according to Herrera, were taken by the Payaguas, who had entered into the dominions of Huana Ceapac : Charlevoix, however, asserts that they were the spoils of the Portuguese Alexis Garcia, who crossed the continent from the Brazil to Peru, and who was killed in Paraguay by the Payaguas, not without suspicion of foul play on the part of the Spaniards.