Page:Letters from the Battle-fields of Paraguay (1870).djvu/371



LETTER XVII.

VISITS TO timb6 and to estabelecimento novo (alias

THE CIERVA REDOUBi). GENERAL ARGOLO.

Humaita, August 26, 1868. My dear Z ,

I bore from Corrientes an introductory letter to Commodore Francisco Cordeiro de Torres Alvim, Chef de Es- tado Mayor da Esquadra Imperial. This Captain of the Fleet — who is its arm as well as its brain — has the bluff, hearty manner of an old sailor, and speaks excellent English^ which he learned in the United States. He had hoisted his flag on board the Cannonheira Mearim, but he appears to be ubiquitous. During the three years' campaign he had been wounded in three places by the Chata-shell, which did such havoc in the casemate of the Tamandare ironclad. On Sunday, August 24, he came in the little steam-launch on board of which he seems to live, and offered Lieutenant- Commander Bushe and myself a passage up stream as far as Timbo — three to three and a half leagues.

A two-knot current was against us, and La Mouche ran gingerly on account of floating torpedoes and fixed infernal machines. Many had been fished up by the Linnet as well as by other craft, but not a few still remained. They did, on the whole, very little damage. A torpedo-brigade was of course unknown, and after the original maker, Mr. Bell, of the United States, died at Asuncion, no one was found capable of turning out an efiicient article. Cases contain- ing charges of 900 lbs. of gunpowder were tried : they always proved wet. The system was, I have told you, frictional and