Page:Letters from the Battle-fields of Paraguay (1870).djvu/404



374 TO THE BRAZILIAN FRONT.

road enters the bush ; it is already trodden into dust and mirC; with ruts eighteen inches deep. Of course, the freights are enormously high.

Entering the "bush"I found a familiar vegetation. The grassy soil of the highest levels was scattered over with tree mottes, called Islas or Isletas de monte. Most of them were thorny aromas and aromitas (perfumed mimosas), bear- ing purse- nets that swung in the fresh breath of morning, and hung with fluffy golden balls, whose scent recalled the Fitnah of Egypt. Many were leguminous, especially the algaroba — the French carroubier and the carobbe of Italy — and the nandubay (acacia cavenia), which is found petrified in the Uruguay waters. Tillandsias were rampant upon the bough, and on the ferns sat pink-flowered bromelias, so com- mon in the Brazil. The absence of inundation was shown by huge ant-hills, low domes of loose dark earth. Where the floods did not extend regularly the surface was spotted with the wax-palm (Copernicia conifera). Its fan-shaped and thorn-fringed leaves were those of the curnahuba, as it appears upon the Rio de Sao Francisco ; but the trunk was prickly only in the upper part, denoting a diff"erence of species. Here it is termed carandai, or palma blanca, op- posed to the carandai-hu, or palma negra. Of the ^' vege- tation rabougrie,^^ the cactus and the caraguata bromelia ap- peared to be the most general. The birds were the anum (coprophagus), ^partridges f a large woodpecker, parroquets, and vultures soaring in search of carrion. Three snakes lay dead upon the path, and many snailshells were scattered about.

The road was easily told by broken-down commissariat carts and dead cattle ; a thousand head had been expended by the Brazilian Government between Humaita and this place. Here, as in the Brazil, the railway must take the place of the common highway. Further on, the road