Letters from the Battlefields of Paraguay. Richard Francis Burton

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ indeed, were uncertain whether it formed part of North or of South America; and it is, I need hardly say, impossible to take any interest about the fortunes of a race whose habitat is unknown. Moreover, the periodicals of Europe, wanting, like their public, accurate topographical knowledge of the scene of action, managed to invest a campaign whose grand movements are simple in the extreme however complicated by terrain may be its details, with a confusion that lacked even the interest of mystery. Hence most readers of journals have, during the last four years, studiously avoided leaders, articles, or intelligence headed " Hostilities in the River Plate,^"* and in so doing they were justified.

      This Essay proposes to itself an abstract of the geography and the history of Paraguay, compressed as much as possible without being reduced to a mere string of names and dates.

      And first of the word " Paraguay,^ which must not be pronounced ^' Paragay.^^ The Guarani languages, like the Turkish and other so-called ^' OrientaP^ tongues, have little accent, and that little generally influences the last syllable : a native would articulate the name Pa-ra-gua-y.*

      For this term are proposed no less than nine derivations.

      " Paraguay ,^ says Muratori (p. 92), " means ^ River of feathers,^ and was so called from the variety and brilliancy of its birds .^^

      " Paraguay ,^ says P. Charlevoix, " signifies ^ fleuve couronne,^ from Para, river, and gua, circle or crown, in the language of the people around the Xarayes lake, which forms as it were its crown. ^

      "Paraguay,'"* says Mr. Davie (1805), "would signify ^variety of colours,' alluding to the flowers and birds. Para, in fact, may mean ' spotted,' as in the name Petun Para, the speckled tobacco familiar to all Paraguayan travellers."" Mr. Wilcocke (1807), who borrows without acknowledgment from Davie and other authors, echoes " variety of colours."

       " Y " is written in the Tupi or Brazilian dialect, " ig," or " yg."

      The sound, somewhat like the French " eu " in " eut," for instance, was and is still, a shibboleth for foreigners. We find, by a curious coincidence, which of course has no serious etymological significance, the Celtic Gauls expressing water by the terminal "y," for instance in vich-y = vich (strength or virtue) and " y," water.

      INTRODUCTORY ESSAY. 3

      " Paraguay/' says D. Pedro de Angelis (1810)^ " must be translated, the River running out of the lake Xarayes, celebrated for its wild rice. The derivation would be Para, sea, gua, of, and y, water/'

      "Paraguay," which in some old MSS. is written Paraquay, says Rengger, " is simply ' sea-water hole,' from Para, the sea, and qua-y, water- hole."

      " Paraguay," says popular opinion, " merely expresses water of the (celebrated) Payaguaor Canoe tribe of Indians, corrupted into Paragua by the first Spanish settlers." *

      " Paraguay," says Lieut. -Col. George Thompson, C.E., "is literally, ' the river pertaining to the sea' (Para, the sea, gua, pertaining to, and y — pronounced ii — river or water) ." Colonel Thompson, I may here remark, is spoken of as an excellent Guarani scholar, and he has prepared for publi- cation a vocabulary of that interesting moribund tongue.

      An eighth derivation, for which there exists no authority, is " Water of the Penelope bird" (the Ortalida Parraqua, still common on its banks).

      Without attempting to decide a question so disputed by authorities so respectable and so discrepant, I would observe, that even as late as 1837, a tribe of Guaranis had for chief one Paragua; that such names have been handed down amongst them from extreme antiquity; and that, both in Portuguese and in Spanish America, the conquerors often called geographical features after the caciques whom they debelled or slew. Paraguay therefore, may mean the river of (the kinglet) " Paragua."

      It is not easy to treat of the topography and geography of Paraguay. Some portions, — for instance, the Paraguay river and the Parana to the parallel of Villa Rica, and even to the rapids of La Guayra — have for three centuries been travelled over and surveyed. On the other hand, the most tropical division of the Cordillera, which, runniDg north

      1—2

      4 INTRODUCTORY ESSAY.

      from Villa Rica to the Apa River^ traverses the Republic like a dorsal spine^ may be pronounced to be in parts com- pletely unknown.

      The limits of the Republic are undetermined ; upon this subject she has differences with all her neighbours^ — with Brazil_, with Bolivia^ and with the Argentine Confederation. A detailed history of these disputes would fill many a volume. She claims to extend between S. lat. 22° 58' and 37° 50' j and she traces her frontier up the Parana after its confluence with the Paraguay River to the Cordillera of the Misionesj thence to the line of the S. Antonio Mini till it falls into the River of Curitiba, then again bending west- ward up the Parana, and more westward still up the Ivenheima affluent (so called by the Brazilians, the Igurey or Yaguarey of the Spaniards), and finally over the moun- tains to the valley of the Rio Blanco (S. lat. 21°). Westward the limitation remains for adjustment with Bolivia, and to the southwest the Rio Bermejo separates the Paraguayan from the Argentine Republic. This demarcation, including the disputed territory between the Rio Blanco and Rio Apa (the Crooked Stream alias Corrientes) and others, in- volves a trifle of square 860 leagues.

      Under these circumstances, as may be imagined, the area of the Republic is a disputed point. I will briefly cite the extreme views of other authors.

      Messrs. Rengger and Longchamps (1825) allow to her 10,000 square leagues.

      Mr. Demersay^s estimate is :

      Square Leagues. Lands between the Parana and Paraguay Rivers . . . 10,413

      Ditto ditto in Grand Chain 16,537

      Ditto the Parana and Uruguay Rivers . . . 1,820

      Total square leagues . 28,770*

       These are square Spanish leagues=26,759 French, or 26,935 of 25 to

      the deyrree.

      INTRODUCTORY ESSAY. 5

      Colonel du Graty conjectures the extent of the Republic to represent a total of square Spanish leagues 29,470 — viz.,

      Land east of the Paraguay River . . 11,123

      Land west ditto . . 16,537 (purely fanciful).

      The Misiones claim 1,820

      Of these vast areas, only 2500 square leagues are supposed to be inhabited, cultivated, or used for cattle breeding.

      We may concisely lay down the limits of Paraguay thus : the river of that name and the Gran Chaco limit the west, the Parana bounds the east and south, separating her from the Argentine Confederation; and northwards begins the Brazilian Empire. The parallelogram admits of two great divisions : the northern is a mountainous mass averaging, as far as is known, 1200 metres above sea level ; the southern is a delta or doab, in places lower than the two rivers which form it. Between the two is a middle part, called the " Cordilleritas,-'^ rarely exceeding in height 120 metres ; and here, the uplands fall into the lowlands. Such, for in- stance, are the Campos Quebrados (broken prairie), north of Asuncion; the Altos'^ about Paraguay and Asciirra, one of the places where Marshal President Lopez established СКАЧАТЬ