Page:Letters from the Battle-fields of Paraguay (1870).djvu/449



TRIP TO ASUNCJON. 419

ground, golden and ruddy ; yellow with grass below, and, higher, dark with monte and capoeira, gently rolling up to the hill-crest. Both plain and land-wave are scattered with " quinta/' Here the term is applied to groves of palms and oranges, whether accompanied by a house or not. To the north appears Loma Valentina — a reddish black-dotted upland, still topped by galpons or sheds ;* a single tree showing the headquarters on the south-western slope, which commands the landscape like a map.

On this spot some 4000 Paraguayans and 3000 Brazilians — some have increased the number to 15,000, and others even to 20,000 — fattened the soil. It was the hardest fighting in the whole war.

" No man gave back a foot ; no breathing space One took or gave within that dreadful place."

Marshal-President Lopez once more here risked his for- tunes, and lost ; whilst the Allies, especially the Brazilians, w^on, and gained nothing by their splendid, sterile victory.

The afiair at Loma Valentina is a mystery, and, I may say, one of the ugliest of the many ugly facts that have disfigured this war. After a week^s hand-to-hand fighting, a terrible bombardment, and perpetual rifle-firing, the Allies, headed by the Argentines, marched, on the morning of December 27, 1868, into the heart of the Marshal- Presi- dent's lines. They found the artillery completely dis- mounted, and the few Paraguayans who remained after the sauve qui pent were cut down or bayonetted. The arch- enemy never expected to escape : he had placed his family under the care of General Macmahon ; he rose from break- fast to mount his horse, and he left behind him his personal

according to Lt.-Col. Thompson, the President built at Ita Yvati (the high store}'), about four miles from the river, and two in rear of the Pikysiry trenches.
 * The sheds were probably the remains of the immense house which,

27—2