Page:Letters from the Battle-fields of Paraguay (1870).djvu/365



A VISIT TO THE GRAN CIIACO. 335

to Timbo ; they bore with tbem Colonel Alen, who was reported to have been wounded in the forehead by the splmter of a shell, and two English army-surgeons, Drs. Stevens and Skinner. Colonel Martinez and Captains Cabral and Pedro Gill surrendered to the enemy ; and it is reported that the wife of the first-named officer was cruelly murdered by Marshal-President Lopez, because her husband had suc- cumbed after so glorious a resistance.

We will now inspect the scene of action. At the tongue or tip of the Albardon, a little north of where the chain had been made fast to posts and tree-trunks, we found the little Chaco redoubt which defended the chain. It was held by the Allies to check the Paraguayan " dispersos,^^ or fugi- tives, who were at bay in the wood to the north-west. Three guns were inside and two outside ; the fosse was unflanked and of no importance. To the north-west we saw the gleam of the Laguna Ybera, or Vera, the shining water, with its Isla Poi, or narrow islet. The large pond is connected by a long ypoeira (Canoe channel) with the Riacho de Oro ; and when the floods withdraw, it divides into three or more sections. Nothing can be better adapted for ambuscades than this mass of tangled shrubby and reedy vegetation.

Advancing parallel with the right bank of the Paraguay River we entered a patch of jungle, abounding with snakes, pigeons, and woodpeckers. The large vegetation was com- posed of acacias and mimosas ; the smaller growth of the candelabrum-tree, the umbahuba of the Brazil {Cecropia peltata), now becoming common, and the tall cane, known as the " paja brava.'^ The boughs, adorned with orchids and small pink-flowered parasitic bromelias, were con- nected by the guembe, or tie- tie, which the learned Azara confounded with the guembetaya, that fine trumpet-flower followed by a maize-like fruit. A scatter of wooden crosses showed where luckless skirmishers had been buried, and