Page:Letters from the Battle-fields of Paraguay (1870).djvu/19

 the capital of this “inland China;" Humaitá, the “Sebastopol of the South,” that gigantic "hum" whose "grim ramparts" (wretched earthworks) appeared even in the London Times as “the Gibraltar, or more properly the Mantua, of South America;” the Amazonian corps raised by “Mrs. President Lopez,” the mysterious Madame Lynch, en personne; the Marshal President, who though separated by half a world from our world, must ever command a sufficiency of interest; the conspiracy that has been so fiercely asserted and denied, the new Reign of Terror, called by some the Reign of Rigour, and the executions which, if they really took place, can be explained only by the dementia preceding destruction, or by the most fatal of necessities. In the purely military sketches the most interesting details are those concerning the much talked-of earthworks, a style of defence becoming in these days of breech-loading and couchant drill, more and more necessary as the means of offence shall improve, and calling for as much practical information as we can collect.

The Paraguayan campaign is essentially a war of entrenchments as opposed to the siege and the pitched battle, and entrenchments have now taken a high position in strategics.

I made two visits to the seat of war. The first, from August 15th to September 5th, 1868, led me to the mouth of the Tebicuary River, when the Paraguayan batteries of San Fernando were being stormed. The second began on April 4th, lasted till April 18th, 1869, and showed me the curtain rising upon the third act of the campaign—the Guerilla phase preceding the conclusion. During a residence of some three and a half years in the Brazil, the Paraguayan question was the theme of daily conversation around me, and where my personal experience failed it was not difficult to turn to account that of others.