Page:Letters from the Battle-fields of Paraguay (1870).djvu/253

 LETTEE IX.

UP THE PARANA RIVEE TO ROZARIO.

August 20, 1868. My dear Z ^

At Buenos Aires the Yi received on board the wife and daughter of General D. Juan A. Gelly y Obes, Commander-in-Chief of the Argentine Contingent — I can hardly call it ^' forces'^ or " army.^^ We had also M. Artui'o de Marcoartu_, C.E.^ a Spaniard,, who proposes the railway from Salto on the Lower, to Santa Rosa on the Upper Uruguay. Among the tripsters was D. Hector F. Varela, notable amongst the numerous and highly distin- guished family of that name : after playing a prominent and pugnacious part at a certain Peace Congress, he was compelled by a duel to quit France hurriedly, and now after holding a variety of high offices he writes in the Tribuna of Buenos Aires. I have to thank him for assisting me in my studies of Paraguay. We also carried D. Segundo Floresj the third son of the murdered President, going, it was reported, to obtain a contract for clothing the Brazilian troops. Good-looking and much resembling the portraits of his father, he was an intelligent youth, speaking good English and French, in manner rather shy, and little show- ing what a tiger he can be when his blood is up. We often met afterwards, and I enjoyed his society — '^ c^etait une nature,^' as Goethe used to ask in his old age. Many other notabilities had promised to assist at the steamer '^'^func- cion,'^ but they failed when it came to the point : a loose-