The bubonic plague had broken out farther down the country, steamboats were at a standstill, so we had to wait a passage down the river. Piedra Blanca is an interesting little spot. One evening a tired mule brought in the postman from the next town, Holy Joseph. He had been eight days on the journey. Another evening a string of dusty mules arrived, bringing loads of rubber and cocoa. They had been five months on the way.

When the Chiquitana women go down to the bay for water, with their pitchers poised on their heads, the sight is very picturesque. Sometimes a little boy will step into one of the giant, traylike leaves of the Victoria Regia, which, thus transformed into a fairy boat, he will paddle about the quiet bay.

The village is built on the edge of the virgin forest, where the red man, with his stone hatchet, wanders in wild freedom. It contains, perhaps, a hundred inhabitants, chiefly civilized Chiquitanos Indians. There is here a customs house, and a regular trade in rubber, which is brought in from the interior on mule-back, a journey which often takes from three to four months.

One evening during our stay two men were forcibly brought into the village, having been caught in the act of killing a cow which they had stolen. These men were immediately thrown into the prison, a small, dark, palm-built hut. Next morning, ere the sun arose, their feet were thrust into the stocks, and a man armed with a long hide whip thrashed them until the blood flowed in streamlets down their bare backs! What struck us as being delicately thoughtful was that while the whipping proceeded another official tried his best to drown their piercing shrieks by blowing an old trumpet at its highest pitch!

The women, although boasting only one loose white garment, walk with the air and grace of queens, or as though pure Inca blood ran in their veins. Their only adornment is a necklace of red corals and a few inches of red or blue ribbon entwined in their long raven-black hair, which hangs down to the waist in two plaits. Their houses are palm-walled, with a roof of palm-leaves, through which the rain pours and the sun shines. Their chairs are logs of wood, and their beds are string hammocks. Their wants are few, as there are no electric- lighted store windows to tempt them. Let us leave them in their primitive simplicity. Their little, delicately-shaped feet are prettier without shoes and stockings, and their plaited hair without Parisian hats and European tinsel. They neither read nor write, and therefore cannot discuss politics. Women's rights they have never heard of. Their bright-eyed, naked little children play in the mud or dust round the house, and the sun turns their already bronze-colored bodies into a darker tint; but the Chiquitana woman has never seen a white baby, and knows nothing of its beauty, so is more than satisfied with her own. The Indian child does not suffer from teething, for all have a small wooden image tied round the neck, and the little one, because of this, is supposed to be saved from all baby ailments! Their husbands and sons leave them for months while they go into the interior for rubber or cocoa, and when one comes back, riding on his bullock or mule, he is affectionately but silently received. The Chiquitano seldom speaks, and in this respect he is utterly unlike the Brazilian. The women differ from our mothers and sisters and wives, for they (the Chiquitanas) have nothing to say. After all, ours are best, and a headache is often preferable to companioning with the dumb. I unhesitatingly say, give me the music, even if I have to suffer the consequences.

The waiting-time was employed by our hunter in his favorite sport. One day he shot a huge alligator which was disporting itself in the water some five hundred yards from the shore. Taking a strong rope, we went out in an Indian dug-out to tow it to land. As my friend was the more dexterous in the use of the paddle, he managed the canoe, and I, with much difficulty, fixed the rope by a noose to the monster's tail. When the towing, however, commenced, the beast seemed to regain his life. He dived and struggled for freedom until the water was lashed into foam. He thrust his mighty head out of the water and opened his jaws as though warning us he could crush the frail dug-out with one snap. Being anxious to obtain his hide, and momentarily expecting his death, for he was mortally wounded, I held on to the rope with grim persistency. He dived under the boat and lifted it high, but as his ugly nose came out on the other side the canoe regained its position in the water. He then commenced to tow us, but, refusing to obey the helm, took us to all points of the compass. After an exciting cruise the alligator gave a deep dive and the rope broke, giving him his liberty again. On leaving us he gave what Waterton describes as "a long-suppressed, shuddering sigh, so loud and so peculiar that it can be heard a mile." The bullet had entered the alligator's head, but next morning we saw he was still alive and able to "paddle his own canoe." The reader may be surprised to learn that these repulsive reptiles lay an egg with a pure white shell, fair to look upon, and that the egg is no larger than a hen's.

One day I was called to see a dead man for whom a kind of wake was being held. He was lying in state in a grass-built hovel, and raised up from the mud floor on two packing-cases of suspiciously British origin. His hard Indian face was softened in death, but the observant eye could trace a stoical resignation in the features. Several men and women were sitting around the corpse counting their beads and drinking native spirits, with a dim, hazy belief that that was the right thing to do. They had given up their own heathen customs, and, being civilized, must, of course, be Roman Catholics. They were "reduced," as Holy Mother Church calls it, long ago, and, of course, believe that civilization and Roman Catholicism are synonymous terms. Poor souls! How they stared and wondered when they that morning heard for the first time the story of Jesus, who tasted death for us that we might live. To those in the home lands this is an old story, but do they who preach it or listen to it realize that to millions it is still the newest thing under the sun?

Next day the man was quietly carried away to the little forest clearing reserved for the departed, where a few wooden crosses lift their heads among the tangled growth. Some of these crosses have four rudely carved letters on them, which you decipher as I. N. R. I. The Indian cannot tell you their meaning, but he knows they have something to do with his new religion.

As far as I could ascertain, the departed had no relatives. One after another had been taken from him, and now he had gone, for "when he is forsaken, withered and shaken, what can an old man do but die?"—it is the end of all flesh. Poor man! Had he been able to retain even a spark of life until Holy Week, he might then have been saved from purgatory. Rome teaches that on two days in the year—Holy Thursday and Corpus Christi—the gates of heaven are unguarded, because, they say, God is dead. All people who die on those days go straight to heaven, however bad they may have been! At no other time is that gate open, and every soul must pass through the torments of purgatory.

A missionary in Oruru wrote: "The Thursday and Friday of so-called Holy Week, when Christ's image lay in a coffin and was carried through the streets, God being dead, was the time for robberies, and some one came to steal from us, but only got about fifty dollars' worth of building material. Holy Week terminates with the 'Saturday of Glory,' when spirits are drunk till there is not a dram left in the drink-shops, which frequently bear such names as 'The Saviour of the World,' 'The Grace of God,' 'The Fountain of Our Lady,' etc. The poor deluded Romanists have a holiday on that day over the tragic end of Judas. A life-size representation of the betrayer is suspended high in the air in front of the cafs. At ten a.m. the church bells begin to ring, and this is the signal for lighting the fuse. Then, with a flash and a bang, every vestige of the effigy has disappeared! At night, if the town is large enough to afford a theatre, the crowds wend their way thither. This place of very questionable amusement will often bear the high-sounding name, Theatre of the Holy Ghost!"

There is no church or priest in the village of Piedra Blanca. Down on the beach there is a church bell, which the visitor concludes is a start in that direction, but he is told that it is destined for the town of Santa Cruz de la Sierra, three hundred miles inland. The bell was a present to the church by some pious devotee, but the money donated did not provide for its removal inland. This cost the priests refuse to pay, and the Chiquitanos equally refuse to transport it free. There is no resident priest to make them, so there it stays. In the meantime the bell is slung up on three poles. It was solemnly beaten with a stick on Christmas Eve to commemorate the time when the "Mother of Heaven" gave birth to her child Jesus. In one of the principal houses of the village the scene was most vividly reproduced. A small arbor was screened off by palm leaves, in which were hung little colored candles. Angels of paper were suspended from the roof, that they might appear to be bending over the Virgin, which was a highly-colored fashion-plate cut from a Parisian journal that somehow had found its way there. The child Jesus appeared to be a Mellin's Food-fed infant. Round this fairy scene the youth and beauty of the place danced and drank liberal potations of chicha, the Bolivian spirits, until far on into morning, when all retired to their hammocks to dream of their goddess and her lovely babe.

After this paper Virgin the next most prominent object of worship I saw in Piedra Blanca was a saint with a dress of vegetable fibre, long hair that had once adorned a horse's tail, and eyes of pieces of clamshell.

Poor, dark Bolivia! It would be almost an impossible thing to exaggerate the low state of religion there. A communication from Sucre reads: "The owners of images of Jesus as a child have been getting masses said for their figures. A band of music is employed, and from the church to the house a procession is formed. A scene of intoxication follows, which only ends when a good number lie drunk before the image—the greater the number the greater the honor to the image?" The peddler of chicha carries around a large stone jar, about a yard in depth. The payment for every drink sold is dropped into the jar of liquor, so the last customers get the most "tasty" decoction.

Naturally the masses like a religion of license, and are as eager as the priests to uphold it. Read a tale of the persecution of a nineteenth century missionary there. Mr. Payne in graphic language tells the story:

"Excommunication was issued. To attend a meeting was special sin, and only pardoned by going on the knees to the bishop. Sermons against us were preached in all the churches. I was accused before the Criminal Court. It was said I carried with me the 'special presence' of the devil, and had blasphemed the Blessed Virgin, and everyone passing should say: 'Maria, Joseph.' One day a crowd collected, and sacristans mixed with the multitude, urging them on to 'vengeance on the Protestants.' About two p.m. we heard the roar of furious thousands, and like a river let loose they rushed down on our house. Paving-stones were quickly torn up, and before the police arrived windows and doors were smashed, and about a thousand voices were crying for blood. We cried to the Lord, not expecting to live much longer. The Chief of Police and his men were swept away before the mob, and now the door burst in before the huge stones and force used. There were two parties, one for murder and one for robbery. I was beaten and dragged about, while the cry went up, 'Death to the Protestant!' The fire was blazing outside, as they had lots of kerosene, and with all the forms, chairs, texts, clothes and books the street was a veritable bonfire. Everything they could lay hands on was taken. At this moment the cry arose that the soldiers were coming, and a cavalry regiment charged down the street, carrying fear into the hearts of the people. A second charge cleared the street, and several soldiers rode into the patio slashing with their swords."

In this riot the missionary had goods to the value of one thousand dollars burnt, and was himself hauled before the magistrates and, after a lengthy trial, condemned to die for heresy!

Baronius, a Roman Catholic writer, says: "The ministry of Peter is twofold—to feed and to kill; for the Lord said, 'Feed My sheep,' and he also heard a voice from heaven saying, 'Kill and eat.'" Bellarmine argues for the necessity of burning heretics. He says: "Experience teaches that there is no other remedy, for the Church has proceeded by slow steps, and tried all remedies. First, she only excommunicated. Then she added a fine of money, and afterwards exile. Lastly she was compelled to come to the punishment of death. If you threaten a fine of money, they neither fear God nor regard men, knowing that fools will not be wanting to believe in them, and by whom they may be sustained. If you shut them in prison, or send them into exile, they corrupt those near to them with their words, and those at a distance with their books. Therefore, the only remedy is to send them betimes into their own place."

As this mediaeval sentence against Mr. Payne could hardly be carried out in the nineteenth century, he was liberated, but had to leave the country. He settled in another part of the Republic. In a letter from him now before me as I write he says: "The priests are circulating all manner of lies, telling the people that we keep images of the Virgin in order to scourge them every night. At Colquechaca we were threatened with burning, as it was rumored that our object was to do away with the Roman Catholic religion, which would mean a falling off in the opportunities for drunkenness." So we see he is still persecuted.

The Rev. A. G. Baker, of the Canadian Baptist Mission, wrote: "The Bishop of La Paz has sent a letter to the Minister of Public Worship of which the following is the substance: 'It is necessary for me to call attention to the Protestant meetings being held in this city, which cause scandal and alarm throughout the whole district, and which are contrary to the law of Bolivia. Moreover, it is indispensable that we prevent the sad results which must follow such teachings, so contrary to the true religion. On the other hand, if this is not stopped, we shall see a repetition of the scenes that recently took place in Cochabamba.'" [Footnote: Referring to the sacking and burning of Mr. Payne's possessions previously referred to.]

Bolivia was one of the last of the Republics to hold out against "liberty of worship," but in 1907 this was at last declared. Great efforts were made that this law should not be passed.

In my lectures on this continent I have invariably stated that in South America the priest is the real ruler of the country. I append a recent despatch from Washington, which is an account of a massacre of revolutionary soldiers, under most revolting circumstances, committed at the instigation of the ecclesiastical authorities: "The Department of State has been informed by the United States Minister at La Paz, Bolivia, that Col. Pando sent 120 men to Ayopaya. On arriving at the town of Mohoza, the commander demanded a loan of two hundred dollars from the priest of the town, and one hundred dollars from the mayor. These demands being refused, the priest and the mayor were imprisoned. Meanwhile, however, the priest had despatched couriers to the Indian village, asking that the natives attack Pando's men. A large crowd of Indians came, and, in spite of all measures taken to pacify them, the arms of the soldiers were taken away, the men subjected to revolting treatment, and finally locked inside the church for the night. In the morning the priest, after celebrating the so-called 'mass of agony,' allowed the Indians to take out the unfortunate victims, two by two, and 103 were deliberately murdered, each pair by different tortures. Seventeen escaped death by having departed the day previous on another mission."

After Gen. Pando was elected President of the Republic of Bolivia, priestly rule remained as strong as ever. To enter on and retain his office he must perforce submit to Church authority. When in his employ, however, I openly declared myself a Protestant missionary; and, because of exploration work, was made a Bolivian citizen.

In 1897 it was my great joy to preach the gospel in Ensenada. Many and attentive were the listeners as for the first time in their lives they were told of the Man of Calvary who died that they might live. With exclamations of wonder they sometimes said: "What fortunate people we are to have heard such words!" Four men and five women were born again. Ensenada, built on a malarial swamp, was reeking with miasma, and the houses were raised on posts about a yard above the slime. I was in consequence stricken with malarial fever. One day a man who had attended the meetings came into my room, and, kneeling down, asked the Lord not to let me suffer, but to take me quickly. After long weeks of illness, God, however, raised me up again, and the meetings were resumed, when the reason of the priest's non- interference was made known to me. He had been away on a long vacation, and, on his return, hearing of my services, he ordered the church bells rung furiously. On my making enquiries why the bells clanged so, I was informed that a special service was called in the church. At that service a special text was certainly taken, for I was the text. During the course of the sermon, the preacher in his fervid eloquence even forbade the people to look at me. After that my residence in the town was most difficult. The barber would not cut my hair, nor would the butcher sell me his meat, and I have gone into stores with the money ostentatiously showing in my hand only to hear the word, "Afuera!" (Get out!) When I appeared on the street I was pelted with stones by the men, while the women ran away from me with covered faces! It was now a sin to look at me!

I reopened the little hall, however, for public services. It had been badly used and was splashed with mud and filth. The first night men came to the meetings in crowds just to disturb, and one of these shot at me, but the bullet only pierced the wall behind. A policeman marched in and bade me accompany him to the police station, and on the way thither I was severely hurt by missiles which were thrown at me. An official there severely reprimanded me for thus disturbing the quiet town, and I was ushered in before the judge. That dignified gentleman questioned me as to the object of my meetings. Respectfully answering, I said: "To tell the people how they can be saved from sin." Then, as briefly as possible, I unfolded my mission. The man's countenance changed. Surely my words were to him an idle tale—he knew them not. After cautioning me not to repeat the offence, he gave me my liberty, but requested me to leave the town. Rev. F. Penzotti, of the B. & F. B. Society, was imprisoned in a dungeon for eight long months, so I was grateful for deliverance.

An acquaintance who was eye-witness to the scene, though himself not a Christian, tells the following sad story:

"Away near the foot of the great Andes, nestling quietly in a fertile valley, shut away, one would think, from all the world beyond, lay the village of E—-. The inhabitants were a quiet, home-loving people, who took life as they found it, and as long as they had food for their mouths and clothes for their backs, cared little for anything else. One matter, however, had for some little time been troubling them, viz., the confession of their sins to a priest. After due consideration, it was decided to ask Father A., living some seventeen leagues distant, to state the lowest sum for which he would come to receive their confessions. 'One hundred dollars,' he replied, 'is the lowest I can accept, and as soon as you send it I will come.'

"After a great effort, for they were very poor, forty dollars was raised amongst them, and word was sent to Father A. that they could not possibly collect any more. Would he take pity on them and accept that sum? 'What! only forty dollars in the whole of E—-,' was his reply, 'and you dare to offer me that! No! I will not come, and, furthermore, from this day I pronounce a curse on your village, and every living person and thing there. Your children will all sicken and die, your cattle all become covered with disease, and you will know no comfort nor happiness henceforth. I, Father A., have said it, and it will come to pass.'

"Where was the quiet, peaceful scene of a few weeks before? Gone, and in its place all terror and confusion. These ignorant people, believing the words of the priest, gathered together their belongings and fled. As I saw those poor, simple people leaving the homes which had sheltered them for years, as well as their ancestors before them, and with feverish haste hurrying down the valley—every few minutes looking back, with intense sorrow and regret stamped on their faces— I thought surely these people need some one to tell them of Jesus, for, little as I know about Him, I am convinced that He does not wish them to be treated thus."

The priest is satisfied with nothing less than the most complete submission of the mind and body of his flock. A woman must often give her last money for masses, and a man toil for months on the well- stocked land of the divine father to save his soul. If he fail to do this, or any other sentence the priest may impose, he is condemned to eternal perdition.

Mr. Patrick, of the R. B. M. U., has described to me how, soon after he landed in Trujilla, he attended service at a Jesuit church. He had introduced some gospels into the city, and a special sermon was preached against the Bible. During the service the priest produced one of the gospels, and, holding it by the covers, solemnly put the leaves into the burning candle by his side, and then stamped on the ashes on the pulpit floor. The same priest, however, Ricardo Gonzales by name, thought it no wrong to have seventeen children to various mothers, and his daughters were leaders in society. "Men love darkness rather than light because their deeds are evil." In Trujilla, right opposite my friend's house, there lived, at the same time, a highly respected priest, who had, with his own hands, lit the fire that burnt alive a young woman who had embraced Christianity through missionary preaching. Bear in mind, reader, I am not writing of the dark ages, but of what occurred just outside Trujilla during my residence in the country. Even in 1910, Missionary Chapman writes of a convert having his feet put in the stocks for daring to distribute God's Word. [Footnote: I never saw greater darkness excepting in Central Africa. I visited 70 of the largest cathedrals, and, after diligent enquiry, found only one Bible, and that a Protestant Bible about to be burned—Dr. Robert E. Speer, in "Missionary Review of the World," August, 1911.]

Up to four years ago, the statute was in force that "Every one who directly or through any act conspires to establish in Bolivia any other religion than that which the republic professes, namely, that of the Roman Catholic Apostolic Church, is a traitor, and shall suffer the penalty of death."

After a week's stay in Piedra Blanca, during which I had ample time for such comparisons as these I have penned, quarantine lifted, and the expedition staff separated. I departed on horseback to inspect a tract of land on another frontier of Bolivia 1,300 miles distant.



PART III.

PARAGUAY



"I need not follow the beaten path; I do not hunt for any path; I will go where there is no path, And leave a trail."



PARAGUAY

Paraguay, though one of the most isolated republics of South America, is one of the oldest. A hundred years before the "Mayflower" sailed from old Plymouth there was a permanent settlement of Spaniards near the present capital. The country has 98,000 square miles of territory, but a population of only 800,000. Paraguay may almost be called an Indian republic, for the traveller hears nothing but the soft Guarani language spoken all over the country. It is in this republic that the yerba mt grows. That is the chief article of commerce, for at least fifteen millions of South Americans drink this tea, already frequently referred to. Thousands of tons of the best oranges are grown, and its orange groves are world-famed.

The old capital, founded in 1537, was built without regularity of plan, but the present city, owing to the despotic sway of Francia, is most symmetrical. That South American Nero issued orders for all houses that were out of his lines to be demolished by their owners. "One poor man applied to know what remuneration he was to have, and the dictator's answer was: 'A lodgment gratis in the public prison.' Another asked where he was to go, and the answer was, 'To a state dungeon.' Both culprits were forthwith lodged in their respective new residences, and their houses were levelled to the ground."

"Such was the terror inspired by the man that the news that he was out would clear the streets. A white Paraguayan dared not utter his name. During his lifetime he was 'El Supremo,' and after he was dead for generations he was referred to simply as 'El Difunto.'" [Footnote: Robertson's "Reign of Terror."]

Paraguay, of all countries, has been most under the teaching of the Jesuit priest, and the people in consequence are found to be the most superstitious. Being an inland republic, its nearest point a thousand miles from the sea-coast, it has been held in undisputed possession.

Here was waged between 1862 and 1870 what history describes as the most annihilating war since Carthage fell. The little republic, standing out for five and a half years against five other republics, fought with true Indian bravery and recklessness, until for every man in the country there could be numbered nine women (some authorities say eleven); and this notwithstanding the fact that the women in thousands carried arms and fought side by side with the men. The dictator Lopez, who had with such determination of purpose held out so long, was finally killed, and his last words, "Muero con la patria" (I die with the country) were truly prophetic, for the country has never risen since.

Travellers agree in affirming that of all South Americans the Paraguayans are the most mild-mannered and lethargic; yet when these people are once aroused they fight with tigerish pertinacity. The pages of history may be searched in vain for examples of warfare waged at such odds; but the result is invariably the same, the weaker nation, whether right or wrong, goes under. Although the national mottoes vary with the different flags, yet the Chilian is the most universally followed in South America, as elsewhere: "Por la razon la fuerza" (By right or by might). The Paraguayans contended heroically for what they considered their rights, and such bloody battles were fought that at Curupait alone 5,000 dead and dying were left on the field! Added to the carnage of battle was disease on every hand. The worst epidemic of smallpox ever known in the annals of history was when the Brazilians lost 43,000 men, while this war was being waged against Paraguay. One hundred thousand bodies were left unburied, and on them the wild animals and vultures gorged themselves. The saying now is a household word, that the jaguar of those lands is the most to be dreaded, through having tasted so much human blood.

"Lopez, the cause of all this sacrifice and misery, has gone to his final account, his soul stained with the blood of seven hundred thousand of his people, the victims of his ambition and cruelty."

Towns which flourished before the outbreak of hostilities were sacked by the emboldened Indians from the Chaco and wiped off the map, San Salvador (Holy Saviour) being a striking example. I visited the ruins of this town, where formerly dwelt about 8,000 souls. Now the streets are grass-grown, and the forest is creeping around church and barracks, threatening to bury them. I rode my horse through the high portal of the cannon-battered church, while the stillness of the scene reminded me of a city of the dead. City of the dead, truly—men and women and children who have passed on! My horse nibbled the grass growing among the broken tiles of the floor, while I, in imagination, listened to the "passing bell" in the tower above me, and under whose shade I sought repose. A traveller, describing this site, says: "It is a place of which the atmosphere is one great mass of malaria, and the heat suffocating—where the surrounding country is an uninterrupted marsh—where venomous insects and reptiles abound." San Salvador as a busy mart has ceased to exist, and the nearest approach to "the human form divine," found occasionally within its walls, is the howling monkey. Such are the consequences of war! During the last ten years Paraguay has been slowly recovering from the terrible effects of this war, but a republic composed mostly of women is severely handicapped. [Footnote: Would the suffragettes disagree with the writer here?]

Paraguay is a poor land; the value of its paper currency, like that of most South American countries, fluctuates almost daily. In 1899 the dollar was worth only twelve cents, and for five gold dollars I have received in exchange as many as forty-six of theirs. Yet there is a great future for Paraguay. It has been called the Paradise of South America, and although the writer has visited sixteen different countries of the world, he thinks of Paraguay with tender longing. It is perhaps the richest land on earth naturally, and produces so much mte that one year's production would make a cup of tea for every man, woman and child on the globe. Oranges and bananas can be bought at six cents a hundred, two millions of cattle fatten on its rich pasture lands; but, of all the countries the writer has travelled in, Mexico comes first as a land of beggars, and poor Paraguay comes second.



CHAPTER VIII.

ASUNCION.

Being in England in 1900 for change and rest, I was introduced to an eccentric old gentleman of miserly tendencies, but possessed of $5,000,000. Hearing of my wanderings in South America, he told me that he owned a tract of land thirteen miles square in Paraguay, and would like to know something of its value. The outcome of this visit was that I was commissioned by him to go to that country and explore his possession, so I proceeded once more to my old field of labor. Arriving at the mouth of the River Plate, after five weeks of sea- tossing, I was, with the rest, looking forward to our arrival in Buenos Ayres, when a steam tug came puffing alongside, and we were informed that as the ship had touched at the infected port of Bahia, all passengers must be fumigated, and that we must submit to three weeks' quarantine on Flores Island. The Port doctor has sent a whole ship-load to the island for so trifling a cause as that a sailor had a broken collar-bone, so we knew that for us there was nothing but submission. Disembarking from the ocean steamer on to lighters, we gave a last look at the coveted land, "so near and yet so far," and were towed away to three small islands in the centre of the river, about fifty miles distant. One island is set apart as a burial ground, one is for infected patients, and the other, at which we were landed, is for suspects. On that desert island, with no other land in sight than the sister isles, we were given time to chew the cud of bitter reflection. They gave us little else to chew! The food served up to us consisted of strings of dried beef, called charqui, which was brought from the mainland in dirty canvas bags. This was often supplemented by boiled seaweed. Being accustomed to self- preservation, I was able to augment this diet with fish caught while sitting on the barren rocks of our sea-girt prison. Prison it certainly was, for sentries, armed with Remingtons, herded us like sheep.

The three weeks' detention came to an end, as everything earthly does, and then an open barge, towed by a steam-launch, conveyed us to Montevideo. Quite a fresh breeze was blowing, and during our eleven hours' journey we were repeatedly drenched with spray. Delicate ladies lay down in the bottom of the boat in the throes of seasickness, and were literally washed to and fro, and saturated, as they said, to the heart. We landed, however, and I took passage up to Asuncion in the "Olympo."

The "Olympo" is a palatial steamer, fitted up like the best Atlantic liners with every luxury and convenience. On the ship there were perhaps one hundred cabin passengers, and in the steerage were six hundred Russian emigrants bound for Corrientes, three days' sail north. Two of these women were very sick, so the chief steward, to whom I was known, hurried me to them, and I was thankful to be able to help the poor females.

The majestic river is broad, and in some parts so thickly studded with islands that it appears more like a chain of lakes than a flowing stream. As we proceeded up the river the weather grew warmer, and the native clothing of sheepskins the Russians had used was cast aside. The men, rough and bearded, soon had only their under garments on, and the women wore simply that three-quarter length loose garment well known to all females, yet they sweltered in the unaccustomed heat.

At midnight of the third day we landed them at Corrientes, and the women, in their white (?) garments, with their babies and ikons, and bundles—and husbands—trod on terra firma for the first time in seven weeks.

After about twelve days' sail we came to Bella Vista, at which point the river is eighteen miles wide. Sixteen days after leaving the mouth of the river, we sighted the red-tiled roofs of the houses at Asuncion, the capital of Paraguay, built on the bank of the river, which is there only a mile wide, but thirty feet deep. The river boats land their passengers at a rickety wooden wharf, and Indians carry the baggage on their heads into the dingy customs house. After this has been inspected by the cigarette-smoking officials, the dark- skinned porters are clamorously eager to again bend themselves under the burden and take your trunks to an hotel, where you follow, walking over the exceedingly rough cobbled streets. There is not a cab for hire in the whole city. The two or three hotels are fifth- rate, but charge only about thirty cents a day.

Asuncion is a city of some 30,000 inhabitants Owing to its isolated position, a thousand miles from the sea-coast, it is perhaps the most backward of all the South American capitals. Although under Spanish rule for three hundred years, the natives still retain the old Indian language and the Guarani idiom is spoken by all.

The city is lit up at night with small lamps burning oil, and these lights shed fitful gleams here and there. The oil burned bears the high-sounding trade-mark, "Light of the World," and that is the only "light of the world" the native knows of. The lamps are of so little use that females never dream of going out at night without carrying with them a little tin farol, with a tallow dip burning inside.

I have said the street lamps give little light. I must make exception of one week of the year, when there is great improvement. That week they are carefully cleaned and trimmed, for it is given up as a feast to the Virgin, and the lights are to shed radiance on gaudy little images of that august lady which are inside of each lamp. The Pal, or father priest, sees that these images are properly honored by the people. He is here as elsewhere, the moving spirit.

San Bias is the patron saint of the country, It is said he won for the Paraguayans a great victory in an early war. St. Cristobel receives much homage also because he helped the Virgin Mary to carry the infant Jesus across a river on the way to Egypt.

Asuncion was for many years the recluse headquarters of the Jesuits, so of all enslaved Spanish-Americans probably the Guaranis are the worst. During Lent they will inflict stripes on their bodies, or almost starve themselves to death; and their abject humility to the Pa is sad to witness. On special church celebrations large processions will walk the streets, headed by the priests, chanting in Latin. The people sometimes fall over one another in their eager endeavors to kiss the priest's garments, They prostrate themselves, count their beads, confess their sins, and seek the coveted blessing of this demi-god, "who shuts the kingdom of heaven, and keeps the key in his own pocket."

A noticeable feature of the place is that all the inhabitants go barefooted. Ladies (?) will pass you with their stiffly-starched white dresses, and raven-black hair neatly done up with colored ribbons, but with feet innocent of shoes. Soldiers and policemen tramp the streets, but neither are provided with footwear, and their clothes are often in tatters. The Jesuits taught the Indians to make shoes, but they alone wore them, exporting the surplus. Shoes are not for common people, and when one of them dares to cover his feet he is considered presumptuous. Hats they never wear, but they have the beautiful custom of weaving flowers in their hair. When flowers are not worn the head is covered by a white sheet called the tupo, and in some cases this garment is richly embroidered. These females are devoted Romanists, as will be seen from the following description of a feast held to St. John:

"Doa Juana's first care was to decorate with uncommon splendor a large image of St. John, which, in a costly crystal box, she preserved as the chief ornament of her principal drawing-room. He was painted anew and re-gilded. He had a black velvet robe purchased for him, and trimmed with deep gold lace. Hovering over him was a cherub. Every friend of Doa Juana had lent some part of her jewellery for the decoration of the holy man. Rings sparkled on his fingers; collars hung around his neck; a tiara graced his venerable brow. The lacings of his sandals were studded with pearls; a precious girdle bound his slender waist, and six large wax candles were lighted up at the shrine. There, embosomed in fragrant evergreens—the orange, the lime, the acacia—stood the favorite saint, destined to receive the first homage of every guest that should arrive. These all solemnly took off their hats to the image."

Such religious mummery as this is painful to witness, and to see the saint borne round in procession, with men carrying candles, and white-clad girls with large birds' wings fastened to their shoulders, dispels the idea of its being Christianity at all.

The people are gentle and mild-spoken. White-robed women lead strings of donkeys along the streets, bearing huge panniers full of vegetables, among which frequently play the women's babies. The panniers are about a yard deep, and may often be seen full to the brim with live fowls pinioned by the legs. Other women go around with large wicker trays on their heads, selling chip, the native bread, made from Indian corn, or mandioca root, the staple food of the country. Wheat is not grown in Paraguay, and any flour used is imported. These daughters of Eve often wear nothing more than a robe- de-chambre, and invariably smoke cigars six or eight inches long. Their figure is erect and stately, and the laughing eyes full of mischief and merriment; but they fade into old age at forty. Until then they seem proud as children of their brass jewellery and red coral beads. The Paraguayans are the happiest race of people I have met; care seems undreamed of by them.

In the post-office of the capital I have sometimes been unable to procure stamps, and "Dypore" (We have none) has been the civil answer of the clerk. When they had stamps they were not provided with mucilage, but a brush and pot of paste were handed the buyer. If you ask for a one cent stamp the clerk will cut a two cent stamp and give you a half. They have, however, stamps the tenth part of a cent in value, and a bank note in circulation whose face value is less than a cent. There are only four numerals in the Guarani language: 1, petei; 2,moncoi; 3,bohapy; 4,irund. It is not possible to express five or six. No wonder, therefore, that when I bought five 40-cent stamps, I found the clerk was unable to count the sum, and I had to come to the rescue and tell him it was $2.00. At least eighty per cent. of the people are unable to read. When they do, it is of course in Spanish, A young man to whom I gave the Gospel of John carefully looked at it, and then, turning to me, said: "Is this a history of that wonderful lawyer we have been hearing about?" To those interested in the dissemination of Scriptures, let me state that no single Gospel has as yet been translated into Guarani.

A tentative edition of the "Sermon on the Mount" has recently been issued by the British and Foreign Bible Society, a copy of which I had the honor to be the first to present to the head executive.

Gentle simplicity is the chief characteristic of the people. If the traveller relates the most ordinary events that pass in the outside world, they will join in the exclamation of surprise-"B-eh-pic! B-eh-pic!"

Information that tends to their lowering is not always accepted thus, however, for a colonel in the army, when told that Asuncion could be put into a large city graveyard, hastily got up from the dinner table and went away in wounded pride and incredulity. The one who is supposed to "know a little" likes to keep his position, and the Spanish proverb is exemplified: "En tierra de los ciegos, el tuerto es rey" (In the blind country the one-eyed are kings). The native is most guileless and ignorant, as can well be understood when his language is an unwritten one.

Paraguay is essentially a land of fruit, 200 oranges may be bought for the equivalent of six cents. Small mountains of oranges may always be seen piled up on the banks ready to be shipped down the river. Women are employed to load the vessels with this fruit, which they carry in baskets on their heads. Everything is carried on their heads, even to a glass bottle. My laundress, Cuacarai [Footnote: The Guarani idiom can boast of but few words, and Mr., Mrs. and Miss are simply rendered "carai" (man), "cuna-carai" (woman) and "cunatai" (young woman); "mita cuna" is girl, "mita cuimbai" is boy, and "mita mishi"—baby.] Jesus, although an old woman, could bear almost incredible weights on her hard skull.

As the climate is hot, a favorite occupation for men and women is to sit half-submerged in the river, smoking vigorously "The Paraguayans are an amphibious race, neither wholly seamen nor wholly landsmen, but partaking of both." All sleep in cotton hammocks,—beds are almost unknown. The hammocks are slung on the verandah of the house in the hotter season and all sleep outside, taking off their garments with real sang froid. In the cooler season the visitor is invited to hang his hammock along with the rest inside the house, and in the early morning naked little children bring mt to each one. If the family is wealthy this will be served in a heavy silver cup and bombilla, or sucking tube, of the same metal. After this drink and a bite of chip, a strangely shaped, thin-necked bottle, made of sun-baked clay, is brought, and from it water is poured on the hands. The towels are spotlessly white and of the finest texture. They are hand-made, and are so delicately woven and embroidered that I found it difficult to accustom myself to use them. The beautifully fine lace called nandut (literally spider's web) is also here made by the Indian women, who have long been civilized. Some of the handkerchiefs they make are worth $50 each in the fashionable cities of America and Europe. A month's work may easily be expended on such a dainty fabric.

The women seem exceptionally fond of pets. Monkeys and birds are common in a house, and the housewife will show you her parrot and say, "In this bird dwells the spirit of my departed mother." An enemy, somehow, has always turned into an alligator—a reptile much loathed by them.

In even the poorest houses there is a shrine and a "Saint." These deities can answer all prayers if they choose to. Sometimes, however, they are not "in the humor," and at one house the saint had refused, so he was laid flat on the floor, face downwards. The woman swore that until he answered her petition she would not lift him up again. He laid thus all night; whether longer or not I do not know.

Having heard much concerning the moralit of the people, I asked the maid at a respectable private house where I was staying: "Have you a father?" "No, sir," she answered, "we Paraguayans are not accustomed to have a father." Children of five or six, when asked about that parent, will often answer, "Father died in the war." The war ended thirty-nine years ago, but they have been taught to say this by the mother.

As in Argentina the first word the stranger learns is maana (to- morrow), so here the first is dy-qui (I don't know). Whatever question you ask the Guarani, he will almost invariably answer, "Dy- qui." Ask him his age, he answers "Dy-qui" To your question: "Are you twenty or one hundred and twenty?" he will reply "Dy-qui." Through the long rule of the Jesuits the natives stopped thinking; they had it all done for them. "At the same time that they enslaved them, they tortured them into the profession of the religion they had imported; and as they had seen that in the old land the love of this world and the deceitfulness of riches were ever in the way of conversion to the true faith, they piously relieved the Indians of these snares of the soul, even going so far in the discharge of this painful duty as to relieve them of life at the same time, if necessary to get their possessions into their own hands," [Footnote: Robertson's "Letters on Paraguay."]

"The stories of their hardness, and perfidy, and immorality beggar description. The children of the priests have become so numerous that the shame is no longer considered." [Footnote: Service.]

As the Mahometans have their Mecca, so the Paraguayans have Caacup; and the image of the Virgin in that village is the great wonder- worker. Prayers are directed to her that she will raise the sick, etc., and promises are made her if she will do this. One morning I had business with a storekeeper, and went to his office. "Is the cara in?" I asked. "No," I was answered, "he has gone to Caacup to pay a promise." That promise was to burn so many candles before the Virgin, and further adorn her bejewelled robes. She had, as he believed, healed him of a sickness.

The village of Caacup is about forty miles from Asuncion. "The Bishop of Paraguay formally inaugurated the worship of the Virgin of Caacup, sending forth an episcopal letter accrediting the practice, and promising indulgences to the pilgrims who should visit the shrine. Thus the worship became legal and orthodox. Multitudes of people visit her, carrying offerings of valuable jewels. There are several well-authenticated cases of persons, whose offerings were of inferior quality, being overtaken with some terrible calamity." [Footnote: Washburn's "History of Paraguay."]

Funds must be secured somehow, for the present Bishop's sons, to whom I was introduced as among the aristocrats of the capital, certainly need a large income from the lavish manner I noticed them "treat" all and sundry in the hotel. "It is admitted by all, that in South America the church is decadent and corrupt. The immorality of the priests is taken for granted. Priests' sons and daughters, of course not born in wedlock, abound everywhere, and no stigma attaches to them or to their fathers and mothers." [Footnote: "The Continent of Opportunity." Dr. Clark.] Hon. S. H. Blake, in the Neglected Continent, writes: "I was especially struck by the statement of a Roman Catholic—a Consular agent with a large amount of information as to the land and its inhabitants. He stopped me in speaking of the priests by saying, 'I know all that. You cannot exaggerate their immorality. Everybody knows it—but the Latin race is a degenerate race. Nothing can be done with it. The Roman Church has had four centuries of trial and has made a failure of it.'"

When a person is dying, the Pa is hurriedly sent for. To this call he will readily respond. A procession will be formed, and, preceded by a boy ringing a bell, the Host, or, to use an everyday expression, God, will be carried from the church down the street to the sick one. All passers-by must kneel as this goes along, and the police will arrest you if you do not at least take off your hat. "Liberty of conscience is a most diabolical thing, to be stamped out at any cost," is the maxim of Rome, and the Guarani has learned his lesson well. "In Inquisition Square men were burned for daring to think, therefore men stopped thinking when death was the penalty."

Wakes for the dead are always held, and in the case of a child the little one lies in state adorned with gilded wings and tinselled finery. All in the neighborhood are invited to the dance which takes place that evening around the corpse. At a funeral the Pa walks first, followed by a crowd of men, women and children bearing candles, some of which are four and five feet long. The dead are carried through the streets in a very shallow coffin, and the head is much elevated. An old woman generally walks by the side, bearing the coffin lid on her head. The dead are always buried respectfully, for an old law reads: "No person shall ride in the dead cart except the corpse that is carried, and, therefore, nobody shall get up and ride behind. It is against Christian piety to bury people with irreverent actions, or drag them in hides, or throw them into the grave without consideration, or in a position contrary to the practice of the Church."

All Saints Day is a special time for releasing departed ones out of purgatory. Hundreds of people visit the cemeteries then, and pay the waiting priests so much a prayer, If that "liberator of souls" sings the prayer the price is doubled, but it is considered doubly efficacious.

A good feature of Romanism in Paraguay is that the people have been taught something of Christ, but there seems to be an utter want of reverence toward His person, for one may see a red flag on the public streets announcing that there are the "Auction Rooms of the child God." In his "Letters on Paraguay," Robertson relates the following graphic account of the celebration of His death: "I found great preparations making at the cathedral for the sermon of 'the agony on the cross.' A wooden figure of our Saviour crucified was affixed against the wall, opposite the pulpit; a large bier was placed in the centre of the cathedral, and the great altar at the eastern extremity was hung with black; while around were disposed lighted candles and other insignia of a great funeral. When the sermon commenced, the cathedral was crowded to suffocation, a great proportion of the audience being females. The discourse was interrupted alternately by the low moans and sobbings of the congregation. These became more audible as the preacher warmed with his discourse, which was partly addressed to his auditory and partly to the figure before him; and when at length he exclaimed, 'Behold! Behold! He gives up the ghost!' the head of the figure was slowly depressed by a spring towards the breast, and one simultaneous shriek—loud, piercing, almost appalling—was uttered by the whole congregation. The women now all struggled for a superiority in giving unbounded vent to apparently the most distracting grief. Some raved like maniacs, others beat their breasts and tore their hair. Exclamations, cries, sobs and shrieks mingled, and united in forming one mighty tide of clamor, uproar, noise and confusion. In the midst of the raging tempest could be heard, ever and anon, the stentorian voice of the preacher, reproaching in terms of indignation and wrath the apathy of his hearers! 'Can you, oh, insensate crowd!' he would cry, 'Can you sit in silence?'—but here his voice was drowned in an overwhelming cry of loudest woe, from every part of the church; and for five minutes all further effort to make himself heard was unavailing. This singular scene continued for nearly half an hour; then, by degrees, the vehement grief of the congregation abated, and when I left the cathedral it had subsided once more into low sobs and silent tears.

"I now took my way, with many others, to the Church of San Francisco, where, in an open space in front of the church, I found that the duty of the day had advanced to the funeral service, which was about being celebrated. There a scaffolding was erected, and the crucifixion exactly represented by wooden figures, not only of our Lord, but of the two thieves. A pulpit was erected in front of the scaffold; and the whole square was covered by the devout inhabitants of the city. The same kind of scene was being enacted here as at the cathedral, with the difference, however, of the circumstantial funeral in place of the death. The orator's discourse when I arrived was only here and there interrupted by a suppressed moan, or a struggling sigh, to be heard in the crowd. But when he commenced giving directions for the taking down of the body from the cross, the impatience of grief began to manifest itself on all sides, 'Mount up,' he cried, 'ye holy ministers, mount up, and prepare for the sad duty which ye have to perform!' Here six or eight persons, covered from head to foot with ample black cloaks, ascended the scaffold. Now the groans of the people became more audible; and when at length directions were given to strike out the first nail, the cathedral scene of confusion, which I have just described, began, and all the rest of the preacher's oratory was dumb show. The body was at length deposited in the coffin, and the groaning and shrieking of the assembled multitude ceased. A solemn funeral ceremony took place: every respectable person received a great wax taper to carry in the procession: the coffin after being carried all round was deposited in the church: the people dispersed; and the great day of Passion Week was brought to a close."



CHAPTER IX.

EXPEDITION TO THE SUN-WORSHIPPERS. [Footnote: An account of this expedition was requested by and sent to the Royal Geographical Society of London, Eng.]

I took passage on the "Urano," a steamer of 1,500 tons, for Concepcion, 200 miles north of Asuncion.

On the second day of our journey the people on board celebrated a church feast, and the pilot, in his anxiety to do it well, got helplessly drunk. The result was that during that night I was thrown out of the top berth I occupied by a terrific thud. The steamer had run on the sandbank of an uninhabited island, and there she stuck fast—immovable. We were landed on the shore, and there had further time for reflection on the mutability of things. In the white sand there were distinct footprints of a large jaguar and cub, probably come to prey on the lazy alligators that were lying on the beach; and I caught sight of a large spotted serpent, which glided into the low jungle where the tiger also doubtless was in hiding.

After three days' detention here, a Brazilian packet took us off. On stepping aboard, I saw what I thought to be two black pigs lying on the deck. I assure the reader that it was some seconds before I discovered that one was not a pig, but a man!

At sunset it is the custom on these river boats for all to have a bath. The females go to one side of the ship, and the males to the other; buckets are lowered, and in turn they throw water over each other. After supper, in the stillness of the evening, dancing is the order, and bare feet keep time to the twang of the guitar.

We occasionally caught sight of savages on the west bank of the river, and the captain informed me that he had once brought up a bag of beans to give them. The beans had been poisoned, in order that the miserable creatures might be swept off the earth!

We landed at Concepcion, and I walked ashore. I found the only British subject living there was a university graduate, but—a prodigal son Owing to his habit of constant drinking, the authorities of the town compelled him to work. As I passed up the street I saw him mending a road of the "far country" There I procured five horses, a stock of beads, knives, etc, for barter, and made ready for my land journey into the far interior. The storekeeper, hearing of my plans, strongly urged me not to attempt the journey, and soon all the village talked. Vague rumors of the unknown savages of the interior had been heard, and it was said the expedition could only end in disaster, especially as I was not even going to get the blessing of the Pa before starting. I was fortunate, however, in securing the companionship of an excellent man who bore the suggestive name of "Old Stabbed Arm"; and Doa Dolores (Mrs. Sorrows), true to her name, whom I engaged to make me about twenty pounds of chip, said she would intercede with her saint for me. Loading the pack-horse with chip, beads, looking-glasses, knives, etc., Old Stabbed Arm and I mounted our horses, and, each taking a spare one by the halter, drove the pack-saddle mare in front, leaving the tenderhearted Mrs. Sorrows weeping behind. The roads are simply paths through deep red sand, into which the horses sank up to their knees; and they are so uneven that one side is frequently two feet higher than the other, so we could travel only very slowly. From time to time we had to push our way into the dense forest on either side, in order to give space for a string of bullock carts to go past. These vehicles are eighteen or twenty feet long, but have only two wheels. They are drawn by ten or twelve oxen, which are urged on by goads fastened to a bamboo, twenty feet long, suspended from the roof of the cart, which is thatched with reeds. The goads are artistically trimmed with feathers of parrots and macaws, or with bright ribbons. These are of all colors, but those around the sharp nail at the end are further painted with red blood every time the goad is used.

The carts, rolling and straining like ships in foul weather, can be heard a mile off, owing to the humming screech of the wheels, which are never greased, but on the contrary have powdered charcoal put in them to increase the noise. Without this music (?) the bullocks do not work so well. How the poor animals could manage to draw the load was often a mystery to me, Sections of the road were partly destroyed by landslides and heavy rains, but down the slippery banks of rivers, through the beds of torrents or up the steep inclines they somehow managed to haul the unwieldy vehicle. Strings of loaded donkeys or mules, with jingling bells, also crawled past, and I noticed with a smile that even the animals in this idolatrous land cannot get on without the Virgin, for they have tiny statuettes of her standing between their ears to keep them from danger. Near the town the rivers and streams are bridged over with tree trunks placed longitudinally, and the crevices are filled in with boughs and sods. Some of them are so unsafe and have such gaping holes that I frequently dismounted and led my horse over.

The tropical scenery was superb. Thousands of orange trees growing by the roadside, filled with luscious fruit on the lower branches, and on the top with the incomparable orange blossoms, afforded delight to the eye, and notwithstanding the heat, kept us cool, for as we rode we could pluck and eat. Tree ferns twenty and thirty feet high waved their feathery fronds in the gentle breeze, and wild pineapples growing at our feet loaded the air with fragrance.

There was the graceful pepper tree, luxuriant hanging lichens, or bamboos forty feet high, which riveted the attention and made one think what a beautiful world God has made. Many of the shrubs and plants afford dyes of the richest hues, Azara found four hundred new species of the feathered tribe in the gorgeous woods and coppices of Paraguay, and all, with the melancholy caw, caw of the toucans overhead, spoke of a tropical land. Parrots chattered in the trees, and sometimes a serpent glided across the red sand road. Unfortunately, flies were so numerous and so tormenting that, even with the help of a green branch, we could not keep off the swarms, and around the horses' eyes were dozens of them. Several menacing hornets also troubled us. They are there so fierce that they can easily sting a man or a horse to death!

As night fell we came to an open glade, and there beside a clear, gurgling brook staked out our horses and camped for the night. Building a large fire of brushwood, we ate our supper, and then lay down on our saddlecloths, the firmament of God with its galaxy of stars as our covering overhead.

By next evening we reached the village of Pegwaomi. On the way we had passed a house here and there, and had seen children ten or twelve years of age sucking sticks of sugar-cane, but content with no other clothing than their rosary, or an image of the Virgin round their necks, like those the mules wear. Pegwaomi, I saw, was quite a village, its pretty houses nestling among orange and lime trees, with luscious bananas in the background. There was no Pa in Pegwaomi, so I was able to hold a service in an open shed, with a roof but no walls. The chief man of the village gave me permission to use this novel building, and twenty-three people came to hear the stranger speak. After the service a poor woman was very desirous of confessing her sins to me, and she thought I was a strange preacher when I told her of One in heaven to whom she should confess.

"Paraguay, from its first settlement, never departed from 'the age of faith' Neither doubt nor free-thinking in regard to spiritual affairs ever perplexed the people, but in all religious matters they accepted the words of the fathers as the unquestionable truth. Unfortunately, the priests were, with scarcely an exception, lazy and profligate; yet the people were so superstitious and credulous that they feared to disobey them, or reserve anything which they might be required to confess." [Footnote: Washburn's "History of Paraguay."]

In the front gardens of many of the rustic houses I noticed a wooden cross draped with broad white lace. The dead are always interred in the family garden, and these marked the site of the graves. When the people can afford it, a priest is brought to perform the sad rite of burial, but the Paraguayan Pa is proverbially drunken and lazy. Once after a church feast, which was largely given up to drinking, the priest fell over on the floor in a state of intoxication. "While he thus lay drunk, a boy crawled through the door to ask his blessing, whereupon the priest swore horribly and waved him off, 'Not to-day, not to-day those farces! I am drunk, very drunk!'" Such an one has been described by Pollock: "He was a man who stole the livery of the court of heaven to serve the devil in; in holy guise transacted villainies that ordinary mortals durst not meddle with."

Lest it might be thought that I am strongly prejudiced, I give this extract from a responsible historian of that unhappy land: "The simple-minded and superstitious Paraguayans reverenced a Pa, or father, as the immediate representative of God. They blindly and implicitly followed the instructions given to them, and did whatever was required at his hands. Many of the licentious brotherhood took advantage of this superstitious confidence placed in them by the people to an extent which, in a moral country, would not only shock every feeling of our nature to relate, but would, in the individual instances, appear to be incredible, and, in the aggregate, be counted as slanderous on humanity."

During my stay in Pagwaomi, a dance was held on the sward outside one of the houses, and the national whirl, the sarandiy, gave pleasure to all. The females wove flowers in their hair, and made garlands of them to adorn their waists. Others had caught fire-flies, which nestled in the wavy tresses and lit up the semi-darkness with a soft light, like so many green stars. Love whisperings, in the musical Guarani, were heard by willing ears, and eyelight was thus added to starlight. As the dancers flitted here and there in their white garments, or came out from the shade of the orange trees, they looked ethereal, like the inhabitants of another world one sees at times in romantic dreams, for this village is surely a hundred years behind the moon.

From this scene of innocent happiness I was taken to more than one sick-bed, for it soon became known that I carried medicines.

Will the reader accompany me? Enter then—a windowless mud hut See, lying on sheepskins and burning with fever, a young woman-almost a girl-wailing "Ch raciy!>" (I am sick!) Notice the intense eagerness of her eyes as she gazes into mine when I commence to minister to her. Watch her submit to my necessarily painful treatment with child-like faith. Then, before we quietly steal out again, listen to her low-breathed "Acuerame" (Already I feel better).

In a larger house, a hundred yards away, an earthenware lamp, with cotton wick dipping in raw castor oil, sheds fitful gleams on a dying woman. The trail of sin is only too evident, even in thoughtless Pegwaomi. The tinselled saints are on the altar at the foot of the bed, and on the woman's breast, tightly clutched, is a crucifix, but Mrs. Encarnacion has never heard of the Incarnate One whom she is soon to meet. Perhaps, if Christians are awake by that time, her grandchildren may hear the "story."

In that rustic cottage, half covered with jasmine, and shaded by a royal palm, a child lies very sick. Listen to its low, weak moaning as we cross the threshold. The mother has procured a piece of tape, the length of which, she says, is the exact measure of the head of Saint Blas. This she has repeatedly put around her babe's head as an unfailing cure. Somehow the charm does not work and the woman is sorely perplexed. While we helplessly look on the infant dies! Outside, the moon soared high, throwing a silver veil over the grim pathos of it all; but in the breast of the writer was a surging dissatisfaction and—anger, at his fellow—Christians in the homeland, who in their thoughtless selfishness will not reach out a helping hand to the perishing of other lands.

Would the ever-present Spirit, who wrote "Be ye angry" not understand? Would the Master of patience and forbearance, who Himself showed righteous anger, enter into it? Is the Great God, who sees these sheep left without a shepherd, Himself angry? Surely it is well to ask?

"Oh, heavy lies the weight of ill on many hearts, And comforters are needed sore of Christlike touch."

In this village I made inquiries for another servant and guide, and was directed to "Timoteo, the very man." Liking his looks, and being able to come to satisfactory terms, I engaged him as my second helper. Timoteo had a sister called Salvadora (Saviour). She pounded corn in a mortar with a hardwood pestle, and made me another baking of chip, with which we further burdened the pack-horse, and away we started again, with affectionate farewells and tears, towards the unknown.

Next day we were joined by a traveller who was escaping to the interior. He plainly declared himself as a murderer, and told us he had shot one of the doctors in Asuncion. Through being well connected, he had, after three weeks' detention in prison, been liberated, as he boasted to us, _con todo buen nombre y fama (with good name and report). The relatives of the murdered man, however, did not agree with this verdict, and sought his life. During the day we shot an iguana, and after a meal from its fat tail our new acquaintance, finding the pace too slow for his hasty flight, left us, and I was not sorry. We met a string of bullock carts, each drawn by six animals and having a spare one behind. The lumbering wagons were on their way from the Paraguayan mt fields, and had a load of over two thousand pounds each. Jolting over huge tree-trunks, or anon sinking in a swamp, followed by swarms of gad-flies, the patient animals wended their way.

Here and there one may see by the roadside a large wooden cross, with a rudely carved wooden rooster on the top, while below it are the nails, scourge, hammer, pincers and spear of gruesome crucifixion memory. At other places there are smaller shrines with a statuette of the Virgin inside, and candles invariably burning, provided by the generous wayfarers. It is interesting to note that the old Indians had, at the advent of the Spaniards, cairns of stones along their paths, and the pious Indian would contribute a stone when he passed as an offering to Pachacamac, who would keep away the evil spirits. That custom is still kept up by the Christian (?) Paraguayan, with the difference that now it is given to the Virgin. My guide would get down from his horse when we arrived at these altars, and contribute a stone to the ever-growing heap. If a specially bright one is offered, he told me it was more gratifying to the goddess. Feeling that we were very likely to meet with many evil spirits, Timoteo carefully sought for bright stones. The people are very religious, yet with it all are terribly depraved! The truth is seldom spoken, and my guide was, unfortunately, no exception to the rule. As we left the haunts of men, and difficulties thickened, he would often entreat the help of Holy Mary, but in the same breath would lie and curse!

Sighting a miserable hut, we called to inquire for meat. The master of the house, I discovered, was a leper, and I further learned, on asking if I might water my horses, that the nearest water was three miles away. The man and wife and their large family certainly looked as though water was a luxury too costly to use on the skin. The leper was most hospitable, however; he killed a sheep for us, and we sat down to a feast of mutton. After this we pushed on to water the horses. By sunset we arrived at a cattle ranch near the river Ipan, and there we stayed for the night. At supper all dipped in the same stew-pan, and afterwards rinsed out the mouth with large draughts of water, which they squirted back on the brick floor of the dining- room. The men then smoked cigarettes of tobacco rolled in corn leaves, and the women smoked their six-inch-long cigars. Finding that two of the men understood Spanish, I read some simple parts of scripture to them by the light of a dripping grease lamp. They listened in silence, and wondered at the strange new story. The mosquitoes were so troublesome that a large platform, twenty feet high, had been erected, and after reading all the inmates of the house, with us, ascended the ladder leading to the top. There the mosquitoes did not disturb us, so we slept peacefully on our aerial roost between the fire-flies of the earth and the stars of heaven.

Next day we came to a solitary house, where I noticed strings of meat hung in the sun to dry. This is left, like so many stockings and handkerchiefs, hanging there until it is hard as wood; it will then keep for an indefinite time. There we got a good dinner of fresh beef, and about ten pounds of the dried meat (charqui) to take away with us. At this place I bought two more horses, and we each got a large bullock's horn in which to carry water, swinging from the saddle-tree. I was not sorry to leave this house, for, tearing up the offal around the building, I counted as many as sixty black vultures. Their king, a dirty white bird with crimson neck covered with gore and filth, had already gorged himself with all the blood he could get. "All his sooty subjects stand apart at a respectful distance, whetting their appetites and regaling their nostrils, but never dreaming of an approach to the carcass till their master has sunk into a state of repletion. When the kingly bird, by falling on his side, closing his eyes, and stretching on the ground his unclenched talons, gives notice to his surrounding and expectant subjects that their lord and master has gone to rest, up they hop to the carcass, which in a few minutes is stripped of everything eatable." Here we left the high-road, which is cut through to Punta Pona on the Brazilian frontier, and struck off to the west. Over the grassy plains we made good progress, and by evening were thirty miles farther on our journey. But when we had to cut the path before us through the forest, ten or twelve miles was a good day's work. When the growth was very dense, the morning and evening camps were perhaps only separated by a league. Anon we struggled through a swamp, or the horses stuck fast in a bog, and the carapatas feasted on our blood. "What are carapatas?" you ask. They are leeches, bugs, mosquitos, gad-flies, etc., all compounded into one venomous insect! These voracious green ticks, the size of a bug, are indeed a terrible scourge. They fasten on the body in scores, and when pulled away, either the piece of flesh comes with them or the head of the carapata is torn off. It was easy to pick a hundred of these bugs off the body at night, but it was not easy to sleep after the ordeal! The poor horses, brushing through the branches on which the ticks wait for their prey, were sometimes half covered with them!

As we continued our journey, a house was a rare sight, and soon we came to "the end of Christianity," as Timoteo said, and all civilization was left behind. The sandy road became a track, and then we could no longer follow the path, for there was none to follow. Timoteo had traversed those regions before in search of the mate plant, however, and with my compass I kept the general direction.

After about ten days' travel, during which time we had many reminders that the flesh-pots had been left behind, "Che cane o" (I am tired) was frequently heard. Game was exceedingly scarce, and it was possible to travel for days without sighting any animal or ostrich. We passed no houses, and saw no human beings. For two days we subsisted on hard Indian corn. Water was scarce, and for a week we were unable to wash. Jiggers got into our feet when sleeping on the ground, and these caused great pain and annoyance. Someone has described a jigger as "a cross between Satan and a woodtick." The little insects lay their eggs between the skin and flesh. When the young hatch out, they begin feeding on the blood, and quickly grow half an inch long and cause an intense itching. My feet were swollen so much that I could not get on my riding-boots, and, consequently, my lower limbs were more exposed than ever. If not soon cut out, the flesh around them begins to rot, and mortification sometimes ensues.

On some of the savannas we were able to kill deer and ostrich, but they generally were very scarce. Our fare was varied; sometimes we feaisted on parrot pie or vultures eggs; again we lay down on the hard, stony ground supperless. At such times I would be compelled to rise from time to time and tighten up my belt, until I must have resembled one of the ladies of fashion, so far as the waist was concerned. Again we came to marshy ground, filled with royal duck, teal, water-hens, snipe, etc, and forgot the pangs of past hunger. At such places we would fill our horns and drink the putrid water, or take off our shirts and wash them and our bodies. Mud had to serve for soap. Our washing, spread out on the reeds, would soon dry, and off we would start for another stage.

The unpeopled state of the country was a constant wonder to me; generations have disappeared without leaving a trace of their existence. Sometimes I stopped to admire the pure white water-lilies growing on stagnant black water, or the lovely Victoria Regia, the leaf of which is at times so large as to weigh ten pounds. The flowers have white petals, tinted with rose, and the centre is a deep violet. Their weight is between two and three pounds.

Wherever we camped we lit immense fires of brushwood, and generally slept peacefully, but with loaded rifle at arm's length.

A portion of land which I rode over while in that district must have been just a thin crust covering a mighty cave. The horses' footfalls made hollow sounds, and when the thin roof shook I half expected to be precipitated into unknown depths.

After many weeks of varied experiences we arrived at or near the land I was seeking. There, on the banks of a river, we struck camp, and from there I made short excursions in all directions in order to ascertain the approximate value of the old gentleman's estate. On the land we came upon an encampment of poor, half or wholly naked Caingwa Indians. By them we were kindly received, and found that, notwithstanding their extremely sunken condition and abject poverty, they seemed to have mandioca and bananas in abundance. In return for a few knives and beads, I was able to purchase quite a stock. Seeing that all the dishes, plates, and bottles they have grow in the form of gourds, they imagine all such things we use also grow. It was amusing to hear them ask for seeds of the glass medicine bottles I carried with me.

A drum, ingeniously made by stretching a serpent's skin over a large calabash, was monotonously beaten as our good-night lullaby when we stretched ourselves out on the grass.

The Caingwa men all had their lower lip pierced, and hanging down over the breast was a thin stick about ten inches long. Their faces were also painted in strange patterns.

Learning from their chief that the royal tribe to which they originally belonged lived away in the depths of the forest to the east, some moons distant, I became curious. After repeated enquiries I was told that a king ruled the people there, and that they daily worshipped the sun. Hearing of these sun-worshippers, I determined, if possible, to push on thither. The old chief himself offered to direct us if, in return, I would give him a shirt, a knife, and a number of white beads. The bargain was struck, and arrangements were made to start off at sunrise next day, My commission was not only to see the old gentleman's land, but to visit the surrounding Indians, with a view to missionary work being commenced among them.

The morning dawned clear and propitious, but the chief had decided not to go. On enquiring the reason for the change of mind, I discovered that his people had been telling him that I only wanted to get him into the forest in order to kill him, and that I would not give him the promised shirt and beads. I thought that it was much more likely for him to kill me than I him, and I set his mind at rest about the reward, for on the spot I gave him the coveted articles. On receipt of those luxuries his doubts of me fled, and I soon assured him that I had no intention whatever of taking his life. Towards noon we started off, and, winding our way through the Indian paths in single file, we again soon left behind us all signs of man, and saw nothing to mark that any had passed that way before.

That night, as we sat under a large silk-cotton tree silently eating supper off plates of palm leaves, the old chief suddenly threw down his meat, and, with a startled expression, said, "I hear spirits!" Never having heard such ethereal visitors myself, I smiled incredulously, whereupon the old savage glared at me, and, leaving his food upon the ground went away out of the firelight into the darkness. Afraid that he might take one of the horses and return to his people, I followed to soothe him, but his offended mood did not pass until, as he said, the spirits had gone.

On the third day scarcity of water began to be felt. We had been slowly ascending the rugged steeps of a mountain, and as the day wore on the thirst grew painful. That night both we and the horses had to be content with the dew-drops we sucked from the grass, and our dumb companions showed signs of great exhaustion. The Indian assured me that if we could push on we would, by next evening, come to a beautiful lake in the mountains: so, ere the sun rose next morning, we were in the saddle on our journey to the coveted water.

All that day we plodded along painfully, silently. Our lips were dried together, and our tongues swollen. Thirst hurts! The horses hung their heads and ears, and we were compelled to dismount and go afoot. The poor creatures were getting so thin that our weight seemed to crush them to the earth. The sun again set, darkness fell, and the lake was, for all I could see, a dream of the chief, our guide. At night, after repeating the sucking of the dew, we ate a little, drank the blood of an animal, and tried to sleep. The patient horses stood beside us with closed eyes and bowed heads, until the sight was more than I could bear. Fortunately, a very heavy dew fell, which greatly helped us, and two hours before sunrise next morning the loads were equally distributed on the backs of the seven horses and we started off once again through the mist for water! water! When the sun illuminated the heavens and lit up the rugged peaks of the strangely shaped mountains ahead of us, hope was revived. We sucked the fruit of the date palm, and in imagination bathed and wallowed in the water—beautiful water—we so soon expected to behold. The poor horses, however, not buoyed up with sweet hopes as we were, gave out, one after the other, and we were compelled to cruelly urge them on up the steep. With it all, I had to leave two of the weaker ones behind, purposing, if God should in kindness permit us to reach water, to return and save them.

That afternoon the Indian chief, who, though an old man, had shown wonderful fortitude and endurance, and still led the way, shouted: "Eyoape! Eyoape!" (Come! Come!) We were near the lake. With new- born strength I left all and ran, broke through the brushwood of the shore, jumped into the lake, and found—nothing but hard earth! The lake was dried up! I dug my heel into the ground to see if below the surface there might be soft mud, but failing to find even that, I dropped over with the world dancing in distorted visions before my eyes. More I cannot relate.

How long I lay there I never knew. The Indian, I learned later, exploring a deep gully at the other side, found a putrid pool of slime, full of poisonous frogs and alive with insects. Some of this liquid he brought to me in his hands, and, after putting it in my mouth, had the satisfaction of seeing me revive. I dimly remember that my next act was to crawl towards the water-hole he guided me to. In this I lay and drank. I suppose it soaked into my system as rain in the earth after a drought. That stagnant pool was our salvation. The horses were brought up, and we drank, and drank again. Not until our thirst was slaked did we fully realize how the water stank! When the men were sufficiently refreshed they returned for the abandoned horses, which were found still alive. Had they scented water somewhere and drank? At the foot of the mountains, on the other side, we later discovered much better water, and there we camped, our horses revelling in the abundant pasturage.

After this rest we continued our journey, and next day came to the edge of a virgin forest. Through that, the chief said, we must cut our way, for the royal tribe never came out, and were never visited. Close to the edge of the forest was a deep precipice, at the bottom of which we could discern a silvery streak of clear water. From there we must procure the precious fluid for ourselves and horses. Taking our kettle and horns, we sought the best point to descend, and after considerable difficulty, clinging to the branches of the overhanging trees and the dense undergrowth, we reached the bottom. After slaking our thirst we ascended with filled horns and kettle to water the horses. As may be supposed, this was a tedious task, and the descent had to be made many times before the horses were satisfied. My hat served for watering pail.

Next morning the same process was repeated, and then the men, each with long machetes I had provided, set to work to cut a path through the forest, and Old Stabbed Arm went off in search of game. After a two hours' hunt, a fat ostrich fell before his rifle, and he returned to camp. We still had a little chip, which had by this time become as hard as stone, but which I jealously guarded to use only in case of the greatest emergency. At times we had been very hungry, but my order was that it should not be touched.