Page:Letters from the Battle-fields of Paraguay (1870).djvu/130



100 MONTE VIDEO.

however, is a broad, good-humoured yellow face, with hair apostolically parted in the centre, and subtended by a huge glory : this is Dan Sol, and it has some mystical allusion to " Oriental/^ It contrasts strongly with the Brazilian colours, which wash badly, and which when old, look like a cross between the Irish flag and a Bandanna pocket- handkerchief. The arms of the Orientals are quaint as their flag, quarterings of ox and horse, a hill-like loaf of sugar, and a balance in which the Bepublic has been weighed, but has ever been found sadly wanting.

Flanking the port ride the gunboats of various nations. Amongst them is the Lima Barros, a well-dented Brazilian ironclad fresh from the Paraguayan war : properly handled, she would blow all our " united squadrons,^^ as they are pom- pously called, out of the water, and she contrasts even with the Kansas and the Pawnee unfavourably for the '^'^ citizens. ^^ The English cruisers are known by their cleanliness, and by their being the worst of the lot ; floating coflins equally vile for living in as for fighting. Detached upon river- work they carry Armstrongs which throw three miles, and which drill mere holelets at 300 yards, whilst their pivot guns heel them over 4Â° to 5Â°, the angle of the deck being apparently intended to warn the enemy whence to expect and how to avoid the broadside. It is a shame to call such trash ships of war.

The other and by far the prettier view of Monte Video^ is to be had by crossing the bay and ascending the Cerro. On the way is a granatoid patch, properly the " Isle of Rats,^"* and now baptized ^' Island of Liberty,^^ because, I presume, men are in this jail imprisoned to do quarantine on pickles and sweetmeats. The surface of the Cerro is in spring bright green below and grey stone above, whilst its base lines of horizontal white houses, and its volcanic shape, an irregular flattened cone, remind you of a section of Ve-