Letters from the Battlefields of Paraguay. Richard Francis Burton

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СКАЧАТЬ race one great household, and to do away with onr modern limited idea of the family. Of course the women were faithful to the men as long as they loved them, and when that phase passed away they chose for themselves anew. Like the Brazilians, both sexes are personally clean, and the Paraguayan camps were ex- ceptionally so, but the people do not keep their houses in Dutch order.

      The Paraguayan soldier has shown in this war qualities which were hardly expected of him. He has, in fact, de- stroyed himself by his own heroism. Most foreigners are of opinion that two Paraguayans are quite a match for three Brazilians. The enemies of the Marshal President assert that he forces his subjects to fight; that the first line has orders to win or fall, the second to shoot or bayonet all fugitives, and so forth till finally the threads are gathered together in one remorseless hand — this idea of

       In the Encoraieiidas that belonged to laymen, the Yanacona system

      made the "Indian" de facto a life-long slave. The Mitayo was a temporary Redskin serf who owed a " mita" or corvee of two months per annum to his feudal lord.

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      the triple line seems the invention of Ercilla's Lautaro. If a point be carried by the enemy, the Paraguayan officers are, it is said, " passed under arms,^^ and their wives and children flogged, outraged, and put to death ; the men are merely decimated. As will presently appear, the dis- cipline of Marshal President Lopez allows no mezzo termine ; with him it is fight or die, either bravely in the field, or if a coward, by the executioners^ shot in the back. The Paraguayan soldier has certainly fought, in his hatred of the sterile anarchy of the purer race, and in resisting the usurpations of his neighbours, with a tenacity of purpose, with a fierce intrepidity, and with an impassible contempt of death which do him the highest honour. On the other hand, he is a savage who willingly mutilates the corpse of his enemy, and hangs strings of ears to the shrouds of his ship. The secret of his success is, that he holds himself single-handed a match for any half-dozen of his enemies. The secret of his failm-e is, that his enemies have divined him. Thus, when he attacks in bodies of 7000, he is opposed by 20,000. In one notable point is the Paraguayan soldier de- ficient, and that is in intelligence. He wants initiative : his arm is better than his head. This is the inevitable result of the '^ Indian " being mixed with European blood ; and the same may be seen in the Chilian and the Peru^dan — good soldiers, but lacking brains. He despises pain, to which he is probably little sensitive, and he has not that peculiar ferocity which characterizes the people of the Pampas, as it does all the shepherd races of mankind. M. Alberdi said well, '^ Le desert est le grand ennemi de FAmerique, et dans un desert, gouverner c^est peupler.^^ Man who lives with beasts rapidly brutalizes himself. A single day in the Guacho^s hut suffices to show how his cruelty is born and bred. The babies begin to " balF^ and lasso the dogs, cats, and poultry, and the little boy saws at the lamVs neck with a blunt

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      knife, little sister the while looking on amused. From lambs to sheep, to black cattle, and to man the steps are easy.

      Paraguay instances the truism, that you may learn reading, writing, and the four first rules of arithmetic, yet you may know nothing. The Commonwealth had, according to Colonel du Graty, 500 primary schools, and a total of 20,000 pupils. The census of 1845 registered 16,750 male pupils, which, ac- cording to the proportions calculated in the United States, represents ^th of male population — this remark was made by M. T. M. Lasturria (Chilian Minister to the Platine Republics and the Brazilian Empire) . Assuming Azara^s computation regarding the diflPerence of sexes, 16,750 boys would be the equivalent of 18,041 girls who are not educated. Since 1861 the justices of the peace were ordered to send to school all children between nine and ten who had no excuse for staying away. Each district had its school, but only those of the principal places were subsidized by the State. The usual pay tcTthe teacher was one riyal (sixty-five cents) per month irregularly paid by paterfamilias ; consequently the school- master was despised almost as much as amongst the gold diggers of Australia.

      Instruction was made, as everywhere it should be, — an- other truism — elementary, compulsory, gratuitous, universal. Unfortunately, it was not made purely secular. As usual in South America, Paraguay indulged herself in the luxmy of a State religion — namely, the Catholic, Apostolic, and Holy Roman, modified by the presence of a second and a stronger Pope, in the shape of a President. The amount of religious instruction was, however, confined to the " Chris- tian doctrine,^^ an elementary catechism learned by heart ; in fact, they acquired theology enough to hate a heretic neighbour, without knowing the reason why. No Para- guayan was allowed to be analphabetic — a curious contrast

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      with England and her two millions of uneducated children. The handwriting became so similar^ that a stranger would have thought the Republic confined to a single writing- master. But the educational element was completely sterile. The only books allowed were silly lives of saints^ a few volumes of travels, subsidized and authorized by the State, and hideous lithographs probably put on stone at Asuncion ; the worst and ignoblest form of literature once popular in " Bookseller's Row."*^ There was little secondary instruction, and only one institute in which superior teaching was at any time allowed. The newspaper, more potent than the steam engine, was there, but the organ of publicity was converted to Governmental purposes.

      " II n^y a pas de Journaux a TAssomption,^^ says the Revue des Deux Mondes, with customary and characteristic veracity. As early as April 26, 1845, a weekly paper was established to refute the calumnies of the Argentine press. El Paraguayo Independiente was issued on Saturdays, but irregularly, by the Printing office of the State, and it was purely official, no advertisements being admitted, whilst the price per number was one riyal (65 cents). Some years afterwards it was judged advisable to modify it after a civilized fashion, to vary the matter, and to admit feuil- letons and announcements. It was still the official sheet, the Moniteur of the Republic, and it changed its name to El Semanario — the weekly — not as often written Seminario" — "de Avisos y conocimientos utiles J' It was published at the official capital, Asuncion, Luque, Paraguary, or wherever head-quarters might be ; forming a single sheet, 2 spans long, by 1-30, printed upon Caraguata fibre. This wild Bromelia makes a stiff" whitey-brown paper, good for wrapping, but poorly fitted to receive type, especially when the ink is made from a species of black bean. The first two columns are the ^' seccion officiel "' and the rest is '^ no

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      officiel j " at times a little Guarani poetry appears at the end. The single number costs four riyals, or twelve = three dollars. August^ 1868^ saw its sixteenth anniversary. El Semanario is published purely under Governmental inspi- ration, hence the perpetual victories over the Brazil, and the superhuman valour of the Marshal President. It is said that the copies forwarded to the out stations are ordered, especially since paper became so scarce, to be read, and to be returned. A complete set of Semanarios will be necessary to the future historian of the war, and they will not be easily procured.

      The Cabichui newspaper, translated Mosquito, or Mouche k Miel, is a kind of Guarani Punch or Charivari, established by Marshal President Lopez, to pay off in kind the satirists and caricaturists of Rio de Janeiro and Buenos Aires, and printed by the Army Press. I saw but one number, bearing date year 1 Paso Pucu. The paper was of Caraguata, prepared by M. Treuenfeldt of the Telegraph Office, and the size 1|- span long by 1 broad. The single sheet begins with a vignette of a Sylvan man surrounded by a swarm of brobdignag flies, like the Gobemouche sketched by French children. It has an almanac for the week, sundry articles, all political, and caricatures of the Emperor and Empress of the Brazil, the Triple Alliance, Marshal Caxias and his army, and Admiral Inhauma with his iron-clads. The illustrations, drawn by some amateur military Rapin, and cut in wood, are rude in the extreme, but they are not more unartistic than was the СКАЧАТЬ