Letters from the Battlefields of Paraguay. Richard Francis Burton
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readily becomes that of the savage. The nose is neither heavy nor prominent, and in many cases besides being short and thin it is upturned. The masticatory ap- paratus is formidable, the mouth is large and wide, the jaws are strong, and the teeth are regular, white, and made for hard work. The coloration is a warm yellow lit up with red ; the lips are also rosy. In the " Spaniards," the complexion, seen near that of the pure European, appears of that bleached- white with a soup9on of yellow which may be remarked in the highest caste Brahmans of Guzerat and Western Hindostan. The only popular deformity is the goitre, of which at Asuncion there is one in almost every family ; the vulgar opinion is that all who suffer from it come from the uplands. Obesity is rare, yet the Paraguayan is ebrius as w^ell as ebriosus, and his favourite " chicha" beer of maize or other grains, induces pinguefaction. Until the late war, he was usually in good health. The only medicines known
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to the country were contained in various manuscripts of simple recipes^ written by Sigismund Asperger, a Hungarian priest J who spent (says Azara) forty years amongst the missions of La Plata^ and who, after the expulsion of his order^ died, aged 112. The Paraguayan is eminently a vegetarian, for beef is rare within this oxless land, and the Republic is no longer, as described by DobrizhofFer^, the " devouring grave as well as the seminary of cattle.^^ He sickens under a meat diet; hence^ to some extent, the terrible losses of the army in the field. Moreover, he holds with the Guacho, that ^' Carnero no es carne^ — mutton is not meat. Living to him is cheap. He delights in masamora (maize hominy), in manioc, in the batata, or ^' Spanish potato/^ grown in Southern Europe ; in various preparations of cow^s milk^ and in fruity especially oranges. Of course he loves sweetmeats, such as " mel,^^ or boiled- down cane-juice, not the common drained treacle. His principal carbonaceous food is oil of " mani^^ — the Arachis, here the succedaneum for the olive — and the excellent fish of the Paraguay river : the latter aliment has of late years become an especial favourite, as the ready phosphorus- supplier to the brain, and " ohne phosphor keine gedenke.^' Concerning the Paraguayan character, authors greatly differ, though mostly agreeing that in some points it is singular and even unique. ^^ He is brave because he is good,^ said Mr. Mansfield, overjoyed to find a man and yet a vegetarian, free, moreover, from the " disgusting vice of shopkeeping.' " Un peuple vertueux et vaillant,^^ endorses General Pacheco. " Paraguayo,^^ is now applied by the Brazilian to a stubborn mule, to a kicking horse, or to a drunken man : the women give the name to their naughty children. On the other hand, the Spanish Paraguayans call the Brazilians " Rabilongos," the long-tailed (monkeys) ; and the Guarani speakers " Cambahis,^^ or niggers. In
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Argentine land the Luso- American is always talked of as Macaco, the ape. Travellers have noticed the manifold contradictions of the national mind — such as its " Indian^' reserve mixed with kindness and seeming frankness; its hospi- tality to, and dislike of, foreigners ; the safety of the purse, not of the throat, throughout the Republic; and its ex- cessive distrust, mefiance, and suspicion, concealed by ap- parent openness and candour. Some of our countrymen employ Paraguayan captives as shepherds and labourers ; they are found to work well, but the man will, if possible, lie all day in his hammock or about the hut, and send his wife afield. Personally, I may state that in every transaction with Paraguayans — of course not the upper dozen — they invariably cheated or robbed me, and that in truthfulness they proved themselves to be about on a par with the Hindu. Even the awful Marshal President was not safe from their rascality.
It is pretended by his enemies that Dr. Francia, the better to sustain his despotism, brought about amongst a semi- Republican, semi-patriarchal race, a state of profound immorality, in the confined sense of the word, and that to the encouragement of low debauchery he added that of gambling. The fact is, he ruled the people by systematising the primitive laxity and the malpractices which he found amongst them ; and in autocracies generally, the liberty conceded to society is in exact inverse ratio to the strictness with which political latitudinarianism is curbed. Dr. Francia rose to power over a nation of ^vhom each member was profoundly satisfied with his family, his native valley, his country ; with his government, which he adored, and with his religion, to him the only one upon earth. The con- tempt of mankind was the beginning of his wisdom. He asserted, as do his friends, that Paraguay has no other fault but that of being the strongest and the most prudent of
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States, and that all who speak against her are actuated by mere envy and jealousy. A serf, the descendant of mere serfs — Yanaconas and Mitayos* — a fervent patriot more- over, the only freedom to which he aspired was that of morals. Everywhere the woman of Guacho-land takes a most matter-of-fact view of a subject into which most peoples of the world attempt to infuse a something of poetry and romance. Love is with her as eating and sleeping — a purely corporeal necessity. Like Rahel Varnhagen, she is constant : she always loves some one, but not the same. As everywhere in South America^ marriage is not the rule, and under Dr. Francia it was forbidden, or rather it was conceded under exceptional circumstances only ; this would tend to make of the whole race one great household, and to do away with onr modern limited idea of the family. Of course the women were faithful to the men as long as they loved them, and when that phase passed away they chose for themselves anew. Like the Brazilians, both sexes are personally clean, and the Paraguayan camps were ex- ceptionally so, but the people do not keep their houses in Dutch order.
The Paraguayan soldier has shown in this war qualities which were hardly expected of him. He has, in fact, de- stroyed himself by his own heroism. Most foreigners are of opinion that two Paraguayans are quite a match for three Brazilians. The enemies of the Marshal President assert that he forces his subjects to fight; that the first line has orders to win or fall, the second to shoot or bayonet all fugitives, and so forth till finally the threads are gathered together in one remorseless hand — this idea of
In the Encoraieiidas that belonged to laymen, the Yanacona system
made the "Indian" de facto a life-long slave. The Mitayo was a temporary Redskin serf who owed a " mita" or corvee of two months per annum to his feudal lord.
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the triple line seems the invention of Ercilla's Lautaro. If a point be carried by the enemy, the Paraguayan officers are, it is said, " passed under arms,^^ and their wives and children flogged, outraged, and put to death ; the men are merely decimated. As will presently appear, the dis- cipline of Marshal President Lopez allows no mezzo termine ; with him it is fight or die, either bravely in the field, or if a coward, by the executioners^ shot in the back. The Paraguayan soldier has certainly fought, in his hatred of the sterile anarchy of the purer race, and in resisting the usurpations of his neighbours, with a tenacity of purpose, with a fierce intrepidity, and with an impassible contempt of death which do him the highest honour. On the other hand, he is a savage who willingly mutilates the corpse of his enemy, and hangs strings of ears to the shrouds of his ship. The secret of his success is, that he holds himself single-handed a match for any half-dozen of his enemies. The secret of his failm-e is, that his enemies have divined him. Thus, when he attacks in bodies of 7000, he is opposed by 20,000. In one notable point is the Paraguayan soldier de- ficient, and that is in intelligence. He wants initiative : his arm is better than his head. This is the inevitable result of the '^ Indian " being mixed with European blood ; and the same may be seen in the Chilian and the Peru^dan — good soldiers, but lacking brains. He despises pain, to which he is probably little sensitive, and he has not that peculiar ferocity which characterizes the people of the Pampas, as it does all the shepherd races of mankind. M. Alberdi said well, '^ Le desert est le grand ennemi de FAmerique, et dans un desert, gouverner c^est peupler.^^ Man who lives with beasts rapidly brutalizes himself. A single day in the Guacho^s hut suffices to show how his cruelty is born and bred. The babies begin to " balF^ and lasso the dogs, cats, and poultry, and the little boy saws at the lamVs neck with a blunt
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knife, little sister the while looking on amused. From lambs to sheep, to black cattle, and to man the steps are easy.
Paraguay instances the truism, that you may