Page:Letters from the Battle-fields of Paraguay (1870).djvu/352



322 humaitA.

camp life, chaffed me bitterly about this " chef d^oeuvre of an encampment/' this Sebastopol. They were hardly civil to a courteous Brazilian officer of rank — it proved to be General Argolo — who, riding past with his staff, invited us, though perfect strangers, to drink beer at his quarters. They would not even inspect the lines of the Macacos, as they called their Imperial Allies. Again and again they boasted the prowess of their own party, stating how 500 of them had defended Paysandii against a host.

In front of the Marshal- President's " palace" we found a dozen Whitworth muzzle-loaders, whose shapely lines and highly-finished sights made them look, by the side of other weapons, like racers among cab-horses. Without engaging in the "battle of the guns," I may merely state that a few Armstrongs had been tried by the Brazilians, but were not found to succeed ; the Krupp, like the Lahitte, was ap- proved of, and the Woolwich gun was unknown to the Allies. The motley armature of the Paraguayans was a curious spectacle. By the side of some Blakely's self-rifling shells and balls, hand-grenades, which were found useful in the triumphant Abyssinian campaign, and the HalPs rotating rockets, without the sticks which merely steer them into the eye of the wind, lay huge Guarani wads, circles of twisted palm, like those which Egyptian peasant-women place between the head and the water-pot ; case-shot in leather buckets so quaintly made that it could hardly be efficient at the usual 300 to 400 yards ; canister composed of screws and bar-iron chopped up, and grape of old locks and bits of broken muskets, rudely bound in hide with llianas or bush ropes. To be killed by such barbaric appliances would add another sting to that of death. Here were large piles of live shells, some of them lightly loaded with ten to eleven ounces of powder, for the purpose of firing tents and levelling defences. The conquerors had not taken the