Page:Letters from the Battle-fields of Paraguay (1870).djvu/372



342 TIMBO ESTABELECIMENTO NOVO.

of the simplest. A charge of 40 to 50 lbs. of gunpowder^ in a cast-iron cylinder^ was ignited by bolts at each end striking a small flask of sulphuric acid imbedded in chlorate of potash. The case was placed in a copper-sheathed cask which acted floatj and was protected by a framework of four iron bars or rods_, which^ of course^ lay up and down stream. This apparatus was apparently borrowed from the Confederate States, who thus improved upon the older system of dis- charging common gun-tubes, with long trigger-lines pulled by an operator on shore, or by the passing ship. But the Paraguayans neglected to apply to torpedo-canoes the out- rigger apparatus* which has rendered the once ridiculed in- vention of the Anglo-American Fulton an established offensive armament at sea, and a cheap, convenient, and formidable de- fence for rivers and harbours. It would certainly have done damage, for the ironclads had no picket-Monitors, and in an attack they never penned themselves round when at anchor with 30-feet logs. An English engineer in the Brazil proposed a projecting fender, two scantlings provided with iron teeth like a large garden rake, to precede the ex- ploring vessel ; his suggestion was not, I believe, adopted.

Up stream the scenery was charmingly soft and homely; well wooded on the Gran Chaco side, and clear to the east, showing the presence of banados and esteros, which, filled by high rains, remain stagnant. Upon the west bank lay the curious contrivances of the Timbo garrison when attempt- ing to throw provisions into Humaita. They killed half a dozen bullocks, and lashed them cross-wise to a jangada (raft) of bamboos or palm-trunks, thatched over with grass and pistia, so as to resemble a " camalote."* This

thirty to fifty feet long, lashed by pairs in the middle to form an X, into which enters the bow at one end, heels secured, and from the stern depends a net ; the whole to float" — the torpedoes.
 * Rear- Admiral T. A. Dahlgren recommended " long, slender pine poles

TIMb6 ESTABELECTMENTO