Page:Letters from the Battle-fields of Paraguay (1870).djvu/454



424 TRIP TO ASUNCION.

Triumplio (General Andrade e Neves)^ leading 2500 cavalry, surprised and captured^ at 1 a.m._, December 21, 1868, during a cessation of the rain which had poured two days, the out- lying picquets of the enemy. This feat enabled General Menna Barreto to take the Pikysyry trenches in the rear, and to open communication with the left of the Allied forces north of Las Palmas.

About one league to the north of Angostura, and on the left or eastern bank, we see La Villeta rising above the avenued trees of the bank. It is a classical place. Upon its Arroyo, called the " Paray^' by Lieutenant-Colonel Jose Arenales, the Payagua, or Canoe Indians, violently attacked, in 1536, D. Juan de Ayolas, who followed in the footsteps of Cabot. The gallant Spaniard, after almost annihilating his assailant, founded La Villeta. It is the normal village : a single square, open towards the river front, and the white- washed and tiled houses have verandahs, but, as usual, no back doors, so that each one may the better spy his neigh- bour. The " Palace" of the Marshal-President is a larger building than the rest, fronting north ; and the pauper church, with detached tower, has been turned into a hospital. Outlying tenements lie scattered amongst wasted gardens and torn orange groves, once so highly prized. On the bank is a battery, hastily thrown up by Marshal-President Lopez, who expected that the enemy, after the customary fashion of running his head at the hardest place, would here land. This is the only sign of the " selected and carefully prepared fortifications" here found by the Buenos Airian journalist. Behind the earthwork stands the white gate of the cemetery, and on the crest of the loma lies the quinta occupied by General Osorio when he marched upon Loma Valentina.

On the western or opposite bank, partially masked by one of many islands, is the Puerto del Chaco. Behind it appears a