Page:Letters from the Battle-fields of Paraguay (1870).djvu/219



LETTER VII.

UP THE URUGUAY RIVER, AND VISIT TO GENERAL URQUJZA,

Buenos Aires, October 17, 1868.

My dear Z ,

It will be better, in telling my tale of Paraguay, to sacrifice the unity of place to that of time ; and instead of proceeding straight to the seat of war, as I did in August, 1868, to inspect at once the sites where the war began. The line of the Uruguay River will show us that ^^ terrible worthy^^ General Urquiza, in his Pampa Palace j Paysandu still seared with the scars of siege, and other ^'places with names.'^

So one breezy, blowy morning (Tuesday, October 6) when the north wind was out, and the Garua or Scotch mist was down on the world, we boarded, plunging, rolling, and dashing, the Campania Saltena^s steamer, Rio Uruguay j Captain Panasco, of Tenerife, a civil man and a good sailor â€” happily not Benito Magnasco, an Italian, bilious and surly, who is the reverse of both. The party consisted of Dr. Gibbings, an estanciero or landowner settled in the province of Buenos Aires, and his son, who had preferred being Postmaster in Entre Bios to the disagreeable alter- native of becoming a " personero,'^ un conscrit. Messrs. Maxwell and Johnston â€” names mentioned before â€” were to accompany us halfway, and then to regain the Banda Oriental. Finally, Mr. Power, from the South of Ireland, kept us in fun till the day of parting, when he went ofi* sky- rocketing to prepare for a sail up the Paraguay Biver.

We steam towards the Outer Boads, and the low stretch