Page:Letters from the Battle-fields of Paraguay (1870).djvu/334



304 FROM CORRIENTES TO HUMAITA.

a torpedo^ and lost her captain and crew. The Tvahy and other Brazilian ships were sorely injured. On the 3rd of September General Porto Alegre^ having landed 8300 men amongst the corn-fields about three-fourths of a mile below, gallantly stormed it by rounding, through four feet of water exposed to enfilade fire, the flank that rested upon the lagoon. The losses were about equal on both sides. Un- happily the victor did not follow up his advantage ; after a short pursuit he returned to his lines ; whereas all are agreed in believing that a single rush would have carried Curupaity and even Humaita.

Another quarter of an hour showed us the lines of Curu- paity. Lieutenant Day gives the Isla da Palma near the right bank, and on the left the Guardia " Cuvu Paip,^"* or " Curipeiti.^^ The word means the place of the curupai tree (acacia adstringens, the sebil of Tucuman). Its site is like that of Curuzu, a hollow curve on the eastern bank, bounded south by a projecting angle ; the right of the works resting upon the river, the left upon the Laguna Lopez, which com- municates with the Laguna Chichi. The bank slopes to- wards the inner estero, and from the river we see only the profile of half- levelled earthworks extending ten or twelve squares down stream. Along the bank were moored cutters and schooners, tugs, steam-launches, and a variety of more dignified craft, which had been freighted down stream. We shall afterwards visit the comercio, or bazar. At present I will only remark that those winged fiends, the mosquitoes, despite of oil, raise wounds upon our foreheads, and that the jejens, or sand-flies, bite like furies. Even in the keen north-east wind Curupaity was a hard nut for the Allies to crack, and it broke certain of their teeth.

After the capture of Curuzu, the Paraguayans had retreated to the second outwork of Humaita, and on September 8 they began to dig the trench, which was about two thousand