Page:Letters from the Battle-fields of Paraguay (1870).djvu/412



382 TO THE BRAZILIAN FRONT.

in May 1853^ a certain Prince GortschakofF, leading a miglity host across the Pruth^ occupied Wallachia, and awoke Europe by the roar of the cannon at 01tenitza_, he thought fitj being a Pole, to quit the Kussian army. He was made a captain in the Secret Service Department of the British Crimean force, and he still possesses the commission and the medal granted to " Captain Robert Hodasiwich " — the simplified form of the name. In 1857, going to England, he published " A Voice from the Walls of Sevastopol/^ and then he went further afield. He served with the Turks during their campaign in El Hcjaz, and afterwards, becoming a citizen of Philadelphia, he fought in the ranks of the Federal army. At the beginning of the Paraguayan war he joined the Argentine service as a major, and he narrowly escaped with his life at the " battle of Acayuasa."*^ Nothing saved him in that sauve qui pent but his presence of mind : he threw himself into the bush and allowed the enemy to rush past him in pursuit of the fugitives. As the Argentines would not pay him — they still owe 300/. — he transferred his services to Marshal Caxias, who was sensible enough to appreciate them.

Lieutenant-Colonel Chodasiewicz received an order from the Generalissimo to show me his surveys of the forts, his plans of the first campaign, and his projects for the future. I only hope that His Imperial Majesty of the Brazil will cause these excellent illustrations to be printed on a large scale, with detailed letter-press. Thus alone can this most memorable campaign be made thoroughly intelligible to the present generation and to posterity.

At breakfast, under the little tent, the ex-British officer — whose nickname, by-the-bye, is "O Balao " — gave me some details touching the balloons which had been tried in the earlier part of the campaign. The first of these articles was brought by P. L. D. Doyen. It cost ten contos of