Page:Letters from the Battle-fields of Paraguay (1870).djvu/317



A WEEK AT CORRIENTES. - 287

From 1 to 3 p.m. all Corrientes sleeps. After rising we sip our mate at the house of D. Carmeu and D. Pepa, friends of Pcterkin. The gourds are handed round by the girls of the family ; and in houses where this tea is much drunk, the " cebador/' as the mate -brewer is called, finds his time fully taken up. They chaff us, teach us Guarani as spoken in Corrientes, laugh at our errors, and hand us cigars, which they roll np in the usual way. We greatly prefer the Correntine tobacco, coarsely prepared as it is, to the wretched " Havannas,^^ which cost $40 the thousand. The '^ weed '^ is full of nicotine, although it appears at first to be weak, and the good flavour is much improved by long keeping. It is imported in various shapes ; from Paraguay in loose " pricks," and from Tucuman in sausage- shaped rolls of " bird^s- eye," with a coarse stalk and full of saltpetre as the Syrian Jebayli. The citizens complain that Paraguayan tobacco and mate, the best of their kind, are no longer to be had.

Towards sunset we repair to the river side and watch the fishermen ; here they can always throw in a line and find it weighted with at least 2 lbs. After dinner we visit our " tertuliano," Dr. Charles F. Newkirk, who owns the only wooden chalet in Corrientes — without him the soiree would have been unpassable. A Canadian-born Briton, he had been fined for practising without licence ; now, however, he is en regie, and he makes money despite all the rival mata- sanos or carabins. I was glad afterwards to meet him at Asuncion.

The return home at night, though only down three squares, was never safe. The Correntinos, unless you interfere unduly in the matter of the chubby-faced Correntinas, are a peaceful race. Not so the villain camp-followers — the Basque and the Neapolitan jackals which follow the track of the Brazilian lion. There is such a thing as a Gefatura or Police Office,