Page:Letters from the Battle-fields of Paraguay (1870).djvu/304



274 A WEEK AT COREIENTES.

These symbols abound. A Grand Turk_, painfully transmo- grifiedj here and there occupies a corner shop^ and in these towns the " esquina " pays twenty-five per cent, more than its neighbours. " Peluqueria " is everywhere the rule, and, since the Brazilians and their gold have left, " liquidacion " (selling off) is by no means rare. The only posters are those of a " Silforam"^ which promises views of the Monitor and Merrimac, Fort Sumpter, Vicksburg, and so forth.

M. Prytz is the son of a Danish Baron who settled in the Brazil and became an admiral. Born at Pernambuco, and physically a thorough-bred Scandinavian, he is a furious and ferocious ^' Brazileiro.^^ He is ready to quarrel about the obsolete Abrantes-Christie affair ; and as for the Argentines, he would be down upon them in arms at once. To call him a countryman of Hamlet would be grossly to insult him. It is remarkable that whereas in Europe most men born abroad — for instance, English boys in France, and vice versa — tenaciously cling to the nationality of their parents, the reverse is the case throughout the western hemisphere. I presume the reason is that to Youth a world with a Future is far more sympathetic than one with a Past. M. Prytz has been Brazilian Consul at Corrientes for the last three years ; he is, however, a rabid Conservador, and this may promote him. I found his nationality too irritable for com- fort ; you instinctively feel that all aggressive claims to superiority — one of the characteristics of un-English England — are virtual confessions of inferiority. Far more companionable was M. Edouard Peterkin, a Belgian of Scotch descent. There is no material reason why he should be* here ; but " quitter son pays," says the great traveller Confucius, "â– pour visiter Texterieur e'est accomplir sa destinee." He contracted to supply the Brazilian army with Belgian copies of that "venerable gas-pipe," the Enfield ; and with Whitworths. Of these the average size