Page:Letters from the Battle-fields of Paraguay (1870).djvu/450



420 TRIP TO ASUNCION.

baggage and female slaves^ his private carriage, and even his clothes and papers. Dr. Stewart and others had sur- rendered to the enemy, but Marshal-President Lopez dashed through the scattered Brazilian forces and rode off accom- panied, some say by twenty, others by ninety men, to Cerro Leon, his hill stronghold.

The Brazilian General J. M. Menna Barreto had, before the action^ volunteered to capture the arch-enemy. During that day there were some 5000 Brazilian cavalry in the field, and hardly one-half of them had drawn a sabre. Yet Marshal Caxias refused to detach a troop in pursuit. His friends excuse him by saying that he had been forty-eight hours on horseback ; that his forces had been demoralized by the frightful fighting, and so forth. Similarly, when he returned on sick certificate to Rio de Janeiro, they declared that he was on the point of death when he was seen by the public riding a spirited horse about Tijuca and Andarahy. At length the Generalissimo detached Lieut. -Colonel Cunha and the 54th Volunteers — infantry to catch a man on horseback ! This battalion marched as far as Potrero Mar- iQore, where a large family of half-naked Paraguayans assured them that about two hours before Marshal-President Lopez had mounted a fresh horse. Having failed to throw salt on the fugitive, the pursuers sensibly returned to camp. Comment upon such a proceeding as this is useless. Any service in the world would have called upon Marshal Caxias to justify himself before a court-martial, and a strict service like the French or the Austrian vrould probably have condemned him to be shot. In the Brazil, he was created a Duke — the only Duke — on March 23, 1869, and he was relieved from the command-in-chief on the following 22nd of April.

A little gap in the eastern bank shows the mouth of the Suruby rivulet — Surubi-hy, the stream of the Surubi fish.