Page:Letters from the Battle-fields of Paraguay (1870).djvu/491



AGAIN TO THE ALLIED FRONT. 461

the hair was plaited behind, and formed into two bunches, somewhat like the coiffures of Harar. They spoke Guarani to one another, Spanish to us. Amongst the detached houses one was shown to me where the redoubtable Francia had passed a considerable portion of his manhood, poring over a scanty library, meditating upon the future, and, doubtless, eating his ambitious heart, as must have been the case with a certain contemporary of ours who also rose to a throne. The curves were exaggerated ; the light engine seemed to jump rather than to run ; the canting over caused our fair neighbours — officially called fair — to clutch at us with iron fingers, and I never felt — even while racing against time over the unstuffed pots of the " Santos and Jundiahy^^ — that we were doing better to secure a spill.

The worst part was up a swelling loma that extended nearly to the half-way village. La Trinidad. Its single-steepled church, whose belfry spreads out above to support a huge vane, contains under a long triple profile of tile-roof, the mortal spoils of the late President Lopez (senior). Around this are scattered the picturesque " Summer Palaces,^' with quintas and naranjales, laid out by the reigning family for their conquerors, and huts smothered in dense copse and glorious trees. Trinity was celebrated for cock-fights, and still stood there a single large rinadero (pit), in the normal shape of a skeleton wooden circus, bared of its thatch. The scatter of upright poles and torn mattings, all now deserted, showed where the Argentine forces had lately been encamped. From this point the little city looks exceedingly well. At no great distance to the right of the road is the Recoleta, or original cemetery, so called from the " Recolets '^ of old authors.

Beyond La Trinidad the road greatly improved, and its long straight lines spanned in perspective the Campo Grande, a charming grassy plain, with rare " rolls" and " dips,"