Page:Letters from the Battle-fields of Paraguay (1870).djvu/379



GENERAL ARGOLO. 349

overhead, and the parroqucts whirled past us with loud screams aud shivering flight. As usual, we were annoyed by the Pampas peewit, a sworn enemy to sportsmen. It seems to delight in warning its feathered friends that danger a])proaches, and its persistent clamour makes impatient the most patient. Fine snipe and dark grey snippet ran along the ground, in company with water-hens, and jacanas or lily-trotters { parr as) ^ of brilliant plume. Carrion birds abounded, with fish-hawks, and other accipitres; caracaras, the forefathers of the Guaycuru tribe; and the common Bra- zilian urubii, or turkey-buzzard — I heard of the celebrated urubii-rey, but I never saw it here. The most splendid spectacle, however, was the colthereira or spoonbill (ibis rubra), the guara of the Guaranis. Flights, varying in number from seven to twenty, formed long triangles, and their wings of the finest rose, merging into a dark pink, caught the reflection of the sun, who sank " like a cloven king in his own blood.^^ The pure light of heaven, absorbed by transparent vapour and by the impurities of the lower atmospheric strata, glowed with

â€¢* Flaming gold, till all below Grew the colour of the crow."

Then the weird grey shadow, simulating a cloud-bank, rose in the west, and the moon saw us safely home.

Our next visit was to that distinguished soldier, General Alexandre Gomez de Argolo (not Argollo)Ferrao, commanding Humaita. Born at San Salvador da Bahia of a distinguished family that refused to recognise him, he at first served in the police under a civilian with whom he could not agree. He began in early life to study tactics, by no means a favourite pursuit in the Brazil ; and when he went to the war his friends predicted that he would do great things. They were right. He set out a major of infantry : he returned