Page:Letters from the Battle-fields of Paraguay (1870).djvu/373

 NOVO. 343

word properly signifies a species of waterlily, with fleshy leaves of metallic green^ aud with a blue flower-spike ; it is popularly applied to the floating islets that stud after floods the surface of the Platine streams^ and which are nowhere larger than on the rivers of West Africa, especially the Benin. Unfortunately, the current here sets to the west, and most of the rafts were lost upon the Gran Chaco shore.

The left bank was riddled by Parrots ; and lying under the trees as they fell were the corpses of the Paraguayans who had been killed by the Monitors, and of the Argentine Voluntary Legion who, in early May, had been led into a fatal ambush by General Caballero. The former were dis- tinguished by their fighting gear, regimental caps, cross- belts that carried their ammunition pouches, and a piece of half-tanned leather wrapped round the loins. The latter lay in uniform, except where it had been removed by the vultures. This want of decency did little credit to the service : the Augustines remained masters of the ground, and a small fatigue-party would have buried the unhappy mercenaries in a few hours.

We steamed up to the east of the long barren Isla de Guaycuru. In the smaller branch that divided it from the Gran Chaco were the remnants of two Paraguayan steamers, sunk by the Brazilian monitors. Admiral Carvalho, created Barao da Passagem for running past the batteries of Hu- maita, had neglected, like the Barao de Amazonas at Riachuelo, to pursue the flying enemy, and had allowed four or five of their craft to take lefuge in the streamlets above Asuncion.

Presently we reached the timber slope, down which the Paraguayans had shunted the guns of Timbo into the river. The thirty-two pounders had been fished out by a pair of Monitors, the Alagoas, (Captain Maurity), and the