Page:Letters from the Battle-fields of Paraguay (1870).djvu/240



210 UP THE URUGUAY RIVER.

by the Brazilian Whitworths. The brick walls, however, allowed the bolts to pass through without doing much damage. The sacristan, who was a Swiss, complained that the Oriental Government owed to the Junta a sum of $25,000, borrowed to put down the Blanco chief, Maximo Piris, at Mercedes, and yet that funds for repairing the fane were not to be had.

In front of the church four companies were drilling, and the men appeared all to be Italians. The " Orient" Government, like that of Imperial Rome, begins, without reflecting upon what must be the result, to arm foreigners because these are more disciplinable. The last native mutiny took place but a few months ago (July 20, 1868). The " Guardia Urbana," or constabulary, offended by the " curzo forzoso," and by being kept in arrears for two months " pronounced,^^ armed themselves, and shouted '^ Liberty .^^ About twenty men out of a total of sixty carried off" a gun, and having murdered a " Sereno" for undue interference, took refuge in Entre Bios. They forgot to plunder the treasure chest, which contained $6000, and although they proposed to loot the banks, the measure was not effected.

The square is planted round with the usual ragged " Pa- raiso^"* trees. Its south side shows an old ranch of a chapel. At the north-east corner a single-storied house, left in statu quo, represents the head quarters of D. Leandro Gomez. When it was bespat by balls, and torn to shreds by bolts, the commandant transferred himself to the west side of the square. In the centre is an unfurnished pe- destal ; " Liberty '^ has been knocked down, and has not yet been replaced. The chief battery of the defence, a round tower to the south-east of the square, between the Liberty column and the Matriz, has clean disappeared. This '^ Malakoff,^^ a poor brick affair, was mounted with