Page:Letters from the Battle-fields of Paraguay (1870).djvu/487



AT AND ABOUT ASUNCION. 457

whose lustrous green leaves, contrasting well with its pink blossoms, have recommended it to Europe, and even to Egypt ; and the diamela, or Paraguayan jasmine, which resembles a small white camelia, with a rich but feeble perfume. The sensitive plant clothed the campo like clover or lucerne ; its flower is a pink catkin ; and its stem, armed with small thorns, resembles the feathery mimosa. Convolvulus hung upon the dead stumps ; air plants sat upon the tree-forks ; and the birds had planted the red- berried parasite wherever it could take root. There was an abundance of sarsaparilla ;^ of the red-stemmed sugar- cane ; of melons ; of the arachis or ground-nut, which here takes the place of the olive ; of mandioca, the local parsnip ; of oats, which, formerly unknown by name in the Republic, now grow wild ; whilst the cotton, which at one time pro- mised to become a staple of Paraguayan export, was black with neglect.

The house was the normal quinta of the country ; strong and substantially built. A deep verandah, fronting a lawn to westward, and commanding through the shady trees a fine view of the city, led to a hall and four rooms remarkable for nothing but their ceilings. The offices were to the south, and the interior was in disorder : torn books lay in the corners, a huge mirror had been smashed, and the fur- niture was represented by the foul beds of the Paraguayan " care-taker " and his friends — ruffians like himself, who sleep all night and half the day. He has given up the tene- ment to these " four great orders of knighthood " —

" The earwig, the midge, the bedroom B., Never forgetting the gladsome flea."

A companion, Mr. M'Nab, gave him a sovereign to fetch

brizhoffer has it.
 * From " zarza," a thorn ; and " parilla," a vine : not a gridiron, as Do-