Page:Letters from the Battle-fields of Paraguay (1870).djvu/459



TRIP TO ASUNCION. 429

meiij against 20,000 of the enemy. On the 27th he fled to Cerro Leon. It is the general opinion that Marshal Caxias "was determined not to capture the arch-enemy : he is known to be beyond the considerations of material fortune, but unhappily there are many in the Brazil with whom party feeling is stronger than conscience, or even than self- interest.

We now pass the fine landmark Lambare. Here the current becomes a rapid, a cachoeira, with a swish and a swell which again suggests past experiences. Nearly oppo- site it is the " Curuai/^ or southern arm of the Delta of the Pilcomayo (Bird river), the northern being a little below Asuncion. This river, also called Araguay, the "wise water,^^ or the water of "understanding/^ because, according to Garcilazo, care and experience are required to canoe through its curious mazes, is the second in importance from the west, draining the base of the Andes, and it is under- stood to be of little utility. Uncertain like the Salado, it spreads out wide over the plains : Bolivia, however, looks to it as her future line of communication, which will super- sede that via Cobija on the Pacific nearly 600 miles from Sucre, her capital. At present the mouths of the Pilcomayo can hardly be distinguished, owing to a lagoon on the left bank. At Asuncion no one seemed to know anything of it; in fact, the pilots difi*ered about the position of its debouchure; and in maps we may notice the same dissi- dence, some placing its infiuence north, and others south, of Asuncion.

Hereabouts we cannot disembark. The dead Paraguayans still lie unburied around La Villeta, and the live are prowling about, despite the ironclads, picking up in all directions arms and ammunition from those who want them no more. All manner of "pasados^^ (deserters) are hanging about; and there is a report that in the Gran Chaco opposite exists a