Page:Letters from the Battle-fields of Paraguay (1870).djvu/343



TO HUMAITA. 313

The war, indeed, was altogether premature : had the cuirassed ships and the Whitworths ordered by the Marshal-President begun the campaign_, he might now have supplied the place of Mexico with a third great Latin empire.

We pass to the west of the islet below Humaita. Lieut. Day (1858) shows eleven feet the minimum depth near the left bank. Then sweeping eastward we sight the noble curve called the "Vuelta de Humaita/^ some 1500 metres long, with a stream 200 metres broad; the current is 2'8 and in places 3 knots an hour, diflScult to stem and dan- gerous to torpedoes. From afar appears the white church- tower which suggests the earliest stage of the Malakoff. We lumbered through a fleet of merchant steamers and sailing craft ; here and there lay an ironclad, and every- where the steam-launches, lately introduced amongst us, flew buzzing about like flies. In the heart of South America all is modern and civilized. Who shall say that war is not one of the great improvers of mankind ? Farewell.