Page:Letters from the Battle-fields of Paraguay (1870).djvu/48

 officiel" at times a little Guarani poetry appears at the end. The single number costs four riyals, or twelve = three dollars. August, 1868, saw its sixteenth anniversary. El Semanario is published purely under Governmental inspiration, hence the perpetual victories over the Brazil, and the superhuman valour of the Marshal President. It is said that the copies forwarded to the out stations are ordered, especially since paper became so scarce, to be read, and to be returned. A complete set of Semanarios will be necessary to the future historian of the war, and they will not be easily procured.

The Cabichui newspaper, translated Mosquito, or Mouche à Miel, is a kind of Guarani Punch or Charivari, established by Marshal President Lopez, to pay off in kind the satirists and caricaturists of Rio de Janeiro and Buenos Aires, and printed by the Army Press. I saw but one number, bearing date year 1 Paso Pucú. The paper was of Caraguata, prepared by M. Treuenfeldt of the Telegraph Office, and the size $1 1⁄2$ span long by 1 broad. The single sheet begins with a vignette of a Sylvan man surrounded by a swarm of brobdignag flies, like the Gobemouche sketched by French   children. It has an almanac for the week, sundry articles, all political, and caricatures of the Emperor and Empress of the Brazil, the Triple Alliance, Marshal Caxias and his army, and Admiral Inhauma with his iron-clads. The illustrations, drawn by some amateur military Rapin, and cut in wood, are rude in the extreme, but they are not more unartistic than was the Anglo-Indian Punch in my day. The Lambaré is published only in Guarani for the benefit of those who cannot enjoy Spanish. The Continela was in Spanish, with an occasional Guarani article. Thus "il n'y a pas de journaux " means that there are four.

The commerce of Paraguay is nominally free, but the Government, that is to say, the President, owns more than