Page:Letters from the Battle-fields of Paraguay (1870).djvu/448



418 TRIP TO ASUNCION.

rous to the invader. The same words may describe Villa Mercedes. It had its subtending pistia-swamp, its flat open clearing of carandaypalm^ its scatters of carts and ambulances, its church — N. S. de las Mercedes, a whitewashed, red- roofed shed — and its three big tiled ranchos. Here the line of telegraph was double : one running along the stream, the other striking inland.

And now the weather becomes fitful : the purple cloud at times discharges a few drops, and then a glowing sun- shine bursts upon the scene and gives the landscape life. This is the best of backgrounds for the new prospect which, after more than a thousand miles of luxuriant vegetation in the deadest flat, discloses itself about 3 p.m. The country again suggests that about Monte Video : its low rolling downs are truly refreshing, like a draught of water to a thirsty throat : we feel as if sighting land after a long sea voyage. You will think these expressions exaggerated, but the im- pression was almost universal. Low on the north-eastern horizon, with the subtended angles diminished by distance, rose five blue points, which, according to the pilots, may be seen from Villa Franca. Some called them Cerro de San Antonio, others Lambare, others the Peaks of Paraguari, whilst the best informed judged them to be the Altos, or southern outlines of the great Paraguayan Cordillera. In this direction the heights best known are the Cerros of Itaugua, which meet the Cordillera of Itaipacua ; the peak of Mbatovi ; the range of Santo Tomas, containing a cave inhabited by that Apostle ; the Cerro Porteno, near Para- guari, where Belgrano was defeated; the cones of Acai, near Villa Eica; and Yaguaron, where, in 1755, the Jesuits built the mission of St. Bonaventura.

Nearer, and swelling above the tall tree-curtain of the river bank, are Las Lomas — the ridges — grassy slopes, best fitted for the shock of armies, thwaites, and bits of stubbly