Page:Letters from the Battle-fields of Paraguay (1870).djvu/53

 In 1863 by exports $1,700,000, and imports $1,148,000.

Under the senior Lopez the country was well pierced with roads, despite the many difficulties of "Cienega" and swamp. Of these one, twelve leagues in length and fifty feet broad, was run over Mount Caio, and a second over Mount Palmares, thirteen leagues long. A third, numbering six leagues, and thirty-six feet broad, traversed the Coraguazu, whilst a cart-road was commenced from Villa Rica to the Parana River, about parallel with the mouth of the Curitiba or Iguazii's influent. A single pair of rails with sidings was proposed to run from Asuncion to Villa Rica, a distance of 108 miles. This line began in 1858, and was wholly the work of the Paraguayan Government: it had reached Paraguari, only a distance of seventy-two kilometres, when the allies captured Asuncion. The chief engineer was Mr. Paddison, C.E., now in Chili: that gentleman, fortunately for himself, left Paraguay before the troubles began, and he was succeeded by Messrs. Valpy and Burrell, who did not.

history of Paraguay — she never forgets that she is a province senior to her sister, the Argentine Confederation — naturally divides itself into four distinct epochs, namely, the

(1528-1620); (1620-1754);  (1754-1810); {{sc|and the Era of Independence} (1811).

Discovered by Sebastian Cabot, who in 1530, after a navigation of three years, returned to Europe, Paraguay