Page:Letters from the Battle-fields of Paraguay (1870).djvu/13

 The principal object of these letters is to tell a new tale of modern Paraguay, to place before the public simple, unvarnished sketches and studies of what presented itself to one visiting the seat of a campaign which has, in this our day, brought death and desolation into the fair valleys of the Paraguay and the Uruguay Rivers. In no case, let me say, has distance better displayed its effects upon the European mind. Returned home, I found blankness of face whenever the word Paraguay (which they pronounced Parāgay) was named, and a general confession of utter ignorance and hopeless lack of interest.

Many in England have never heard of this Five Years' War which now appears to be an institution. Even upon the Paraná River I met an intelligent skipper who only suspected a something bellicose amongst the “ nebulous republics” because his charter-party alluded to a blockade.

It speaks little for popular geography when we read year after year such headings as “ Hostilities on the River Plate,” whereas the campaign was never fought within 300 miles of the Rio de la Plata. The various conflicting accounts scattered abroad, with and without interest or obligation to scatter them, make the few home-stayers that care to peruse South American intelligence accept as authentic, and possibly act upon, such viridical information as that for instance supplied by the following clipping :—