Page:Letters from the Battle-fields of Paraguay (1870).djvu/504



474 CONCLUDING LETTER.

comrades in arms. This also appeared to be confirmed by a General Order. The mothers or wives of the bravest officers, who were compelled by the fate of war to yield themselves prisoners^ were forced publicly to disown their sons and husbands as traitors to the country; and failing to do so they were imprisoned^ exiled,, or flogged to death. It is generally believed that the Draconian edicts issued against desertion became with time still more bloodthirsty, and that shooting the collateral offenders was preferred to flogging.

An original and sundry copies of courts martial (consijos de guerra) were given to me as specimens. They were of the most summary and drum-head nature. Paper^ like salt, had become exceedingly rare, one of the reasons being that affairs of the most trivial nature were lengthily documented, and forwarded to headquarters. Two pieces about the size of your hand, coarsely made out of caraguata, or fibre of the wild bromelia, and, to judge from the red lines, torn from some account-book, were tacked together and covered with writing. A man's life is in each one of them, and the tenor usually is as follows : —

" Long live the Republic of Paraguay !

" Relation of the soldier Candido Ayala, of the company of Grenadiers, and of the battalion No. 3, and it is as follows : —

" The said soldier, when standing at night around the fire with other men of his own company, repeated to them the sayings and the offers made to him by the enemy, as he was going in the vanguard under Serjeant-major Citizen Benito Rolon, on occasion of finding himself where he and they could hold communication. One of them said to him, ^ Come you amongst us; throw away your hide-ponchos; here