Page:Letters from the Battle-fields of Paraguay (1870).djvu/278



248 ACTUALITIES OF ROZARIO (SANTA TE).

ten miles, and send out emigrants who mnst be prepared at any moment to exchange the plough for the sword. Properly managed, this place would afford a Hegira to the paupers of Europe, and in its turn this splendid and luxu- riant waste will begin the life of civilized regions.

An error of detail made in this line at one time threatened serious trouble. I quote it as a warning to future specu- lators. The Government ought, immediately after passing the bill, to have purchased the six and a half square miles which cross the railway longiter, and a very small sum might have made them its proprietors. Every month saw active men pressing in to exploit the land, the public funds could not afford $25,000 (5000/.), sometimes demanded for a single square league, and for years the only ground given over in the Cordoba Province was the *' Indian country^' about Tortugas. It was once expected that the authorities would be compelled to offer to the Company, in lieu of the land conceded, a round sum say of $500,000, that this would be refused, that the question would become inter- national, and that the railway would not reach its terminus in 1870. All these difificulties, however, have, I am in- formed, been satisfactorily arranged.

We will now return to the Yi. A ^' tormenta^^ or dust- storm threatens, and we must hurry on board whilst we may. Adieu.