Page:Letters from the Battle-fields of Paraguay (1870).djvu/445



TRIP TO ASUNCION. 415

cion, and whose local knowledge was invaluable. We car- ried also D. Francisco Martinez^ a Commissary General of the Argentine Contingent ; and a pretty Bostonian (N. E.) with two small girls en route to join her husband,, an army surgeon.

The rest on board were the veriest ruffians, riff-raff, raga- muffins, that I had seen in South America, even at Monte Video. The feminine camp-followers were clad in calico dresses, glowing shawls, and satin bottines. The masculine, surly because not permitted to be first class, slept on the quarter-deck, indulged in " eye-openers,^^ expectorated to windward, and smelt rancidly of cabbage and garlic, of sausage and bad ^baccy. Each travelled with his catre, or scissors-bed, his big bag, his bunch of bananas, and another article which must not be mentioned until we shall have learned to call a spade a spade. There were never less than three Italian grind-organs — in the mysterous heart of South America — and when one set landed, another came on board ; they stunned us during dinner, and they had the impudence to dun us for dinning ns. As the rain often confined us to the cabin we suffered immoderately.

Running swiftly past well-remembered spots^ we halted some three hours at Rozario. All the rain of the lower fir- mament had apparently combined to raise the mighty Parana. The memorable " Flood of 1868-69 " began in November- December last, and the water was still twelve feet above the usual mark. The surface was everywhere green with cama- lotes or grass islets, some numbering a few inches, others large enough to carry a ship down stream. They undulated in the wake of our steamer with a grace which doubtless suggested the chinampas or moving gardens of Mexico, and those that did not hitch to the banks floated out to sea via Monte Video. In old days Buenos Aires was full of tales about ^' tigers '^ and other ravenous beasts being landed by