Page:Letters from the Battle-fields of Paraguay (1870).djvu/406



376 TO THE BRAZILIAN FRONT.

Beyond the Yacare extends east and west along the southern bank of the Tebicuary^ a loQg and swelling line of loma^ broken and fronted by banados. Upon the crest of the land-wave stood the h e ad quarter s_, and below it the tents of the body-guard. This was a mixed corps of Brazilians and foreigners^ commanded by a Prussian officer,, Comman- dante Meyer, who is in high favour and well spoken of. The Commander-in-Chief had occupied the Estancia Yacare, or de la P atria, a State property, or, as the Brazilians called it, the Fazenda of Marshal-President Lopez. Tt was a mere Paraguayan farmhouse, a stockade surrounding half a dozen ranchos or sheds, and rooms walled with wattle and dab. Near it rose a very solid mangrullo, whose three sets of ladders commanded a view to the mouth of the Tebicuary, distant about four miles.

A few orderly officers, seated under a verandah facing north, eyed me as the pioii-piou often does the pekin. My letters, one introductory and public from the Coun- cillor Paranlios, and the other containing a few private lines from certain relatives, were delivered, and presently an aide-de-camp told me to walk in, as the Commander-in-Chief was visible.

The room wore an aspect of Spartan plainness ; its only articles of furniture were a few chairs, a camp-bedstead, and a table covered with foolscap, clean and unclean. The tenant received me courteously, not cordially; glanced at the letters, ordered " du PeFel," which we drank, a la Bresi- lienne, in silver cups, and began to chat.

The " octogenarian lieutenant'^ numbers, they say, seventy- two summers, and appears hale and vigorous as if fifty-two. This " Rish safed,'"* or whitebeard of the Allied army, remark- ably resembles the excellent portrait of the late Lord Clyde by the late Mr. Phillips. I recognised the forehead with deep transverse lines, the stiff grey hair, the white, bristly mus-