Page:Letters from the Battle-fields of Paraguay (1870).djvu/38

 1825 Messrs. Rengger and Longcharaps suggest 200,000, of whom 800 only were whites or Spaniards. The Brothers Robertson (Jan. 1st, 1838) increase the figure to 300,000 souls, with a regular force of 3000 but never 4000 men. In 1839–40, the census of Paraguay, ordered by Dr. Francia before his death, numbers 220,000 souls, and this estimate is probably the most reliable. In 1848 General Pacheco y Obes suggests 600,000 to 700,000 souls. In 1857 Colonel du Graty, probably including the Indians, exaggerates it to 1,337,449, whereas the vast Argentine Confederation had at that time about one and a-half millions. Since 1856 all children of strangers born in Paraguay have become by law citizens, but they are too few to be of any importance. In 1860 M. Demersay allows 625,000 souls, and after the calculations of Azara, 18,041 female to 16,753 male births. The book officially published in the same year, under the direction of the Paraguayan Government, increases the sum to 1,337,439, which at the beginning of the war, in 1865, would give in round numbers, 400,000. The "Almanac de Gotha," in 1861, suggests 800,000, and this number is repeated by Captain Mouchez in 1862. On the other hand, the late Dr. Martin de Moussy unduly reduces it under official in- spiration to 350,000. Mr. Gould (1868) places the total between 700,000 and 800,000, justly remarking that there are no reliable data for the computation. He estimates the loss during the war at 100,000 men (including 80,000 by disease), and this would exceed the whole number of


 *  "Le Paraguay, son Passé, son Présent et son Avenir; par un Etranger qui a vécu longtemps dans le pays. Ouvrage publié à Rio Janeiro en 1848, et reproduit en France, par le Géneral Oriental Pacheco y Obes. Paris : Lacombe. 1851." The general prefixed a preface to the work of a resident of more than six years' standing, probably a medical man.