Page:Letters from the Battle-fields of Paraguay (1870).djvu/274



244 ACTUALITIES OF ROZARIO (sANTA FE).

An unhappy tenor^ beginning to mangle his song without ruth or stint^ was literally cheered ofiP the stage — a great improvement upon the barbarous European howls_, hisses^ and cat-calls. We ended the evening at the house of D. Carlos Hurtado^ who^ over some first-rate port^ supplied us with an abundance of the most interesting local information.

During our first visit, my good colleague, Mr. Thomas Hutchinson, H.B.M.^s consul, was absent on sick leave to England. The second found him preparing to quit his little quinta in the suburbs. He had done heroic service during the terrible cholera plagues which desolated Rozario in March to May 1867, and in December to February, 1867-8. A single month (April) saw 492 victims buried in the churchyard. The people mostly fled from the sick, even from those sufiering cholerine — an epidemic that visits them almost yearly during the great heats and autumnal rains. My colleague was ably aided by the Sisters of Charity, with their customary devotion to the cause of suffering humanity, and by Mrs. Hutchinson, who like himself did not escape unscathed. He was then subjected to a cowardly attack in the shape of a caricature. The native doctors, who, by the depletive treatment had sent their scores to the grave, were too glad to throw dirt at a medical man who cured many a patient with chloroform, chlorodyne, and shampooings with brandy and spirits of turpentine. He was, however, gratified by the present of a medal, inscribed, " In Memoria de los Tavajos Practi- cados por la Log. Cap. Union, durante el Colera de 1867. Rosario, 1867.^' And there I believe ended his reward. It almost proves a future state, et cetera.

Mr. Hutchinson of course had troubles with the bad section of his constituents, some of whom circulated a complaint against him. " Society" at and about Rozario is