Page:Letters from the Battle-fields of Paraguay (1870).djvu/174



144 TO THE COLON I A. AND BUENOS AIRES.

unpaved thorouglifare, are better than you would expect ; the material is quarried from the old fortifications, which in their day cost $10_,000 to level. The church, with the white belfries and burnt roof, is a conspicuous object, and the old lines of defence are still in places visible.

The Colony was once walled on all sides except the north : it mounted eighty pieces of artillery, and was gar- risoned by 935 men. Beyond the south-eastern end of the Plaza are the remains of two bastions, one for a single gun, the other for three bouches a feu : near them the tall pharol, white-bodied and red-headed, towers over the solidly built, time-shattered bulwark wall. Further south is the sea ; dyked in by lines of gneiss stained with yellow lichen, and often snowy with the washerwoman's work. The land approach was once imperfectly defended by thirty- two guns, in a curtain with four bastions, of which two were at the angles â€” they are now supplanted by a hedge of cactus and aloes. North-west of the main square are the remains of a bastion and its old " Aljibe," or rain cistern : ground has waxed valuable, much of the relic has been broken up for building materials during the last three years, and in a few more it will completely disappear. It was in this place that Galvao and his gallant wife fought to the death.

Even during the present century there have been troubles at the Colonia, and there will be more â€” men wish that they had a gold ounce for every throat that has been cut in the place. Outside the village they show on the road to the muddy river a cottage and its Ombu tree, where Moreno, a pet ruffian of General Urquiza, when sent to kill off the men seized a wretch, and by way of " renowning it," cut out sundry of his ribs and made them into an Asado or r^ti â€” a cotelette funeste, as the French play says of Eve. The sons of the Colonia are reported to be lazy and