town. It is a large square block of open arcades and pillared roofs, to
which the natives from the suburbs daily bring their produce, intermixed
with other wares of cheap price and of every-day consumption, the
vendors being almost exclusively women. Maize, watermelons, gourds,
pumpkins, oranges, mandioca flour, sweet potatoes, half-baked bread,
cakes, biscuits, and sweets--the chief articles of food--are here
offered for sale, together with tobacco of dark color and strong flavor,
and yerba, the dried and pulverized leaf of the Paraguayan tea.
Alongside of these are displayed a medley of cheap articles, for use or
ornament, mostly of European manufacture; and here may be found matches,
combs, cigarette paper, pots and pans, water-jars, rope, knives,
hatchets, small looking-glasses, handkerchiefs, ponchos, and native
saddles much resembling Turkish ones, which are very comfortable for
riding, and are loaded with coarse silver ornaments. But the chief
interest of the scene is the study of the buyers and sellers themselves.
The men, who mostly belong to the former class, are from the villages
round about, and come mounted on small, rough-coated horses, which are
unclipped of mane or tail. The rider’s dress consists of a pair of loose
cotton drawers, coarsely embroidered or fringed with lace, and over
them and around the waist are many-folded loin-cloths, generally of
white; or it may consist of a pair of loose, baggy trousers, much like
those worn by the Turkish peasants, and girt by a leather belt of
generous width. These, with a white shirt often loaded with lace, and
over all a striped or flowered poncho, complete the dress. Boots are
rarely worn, and the bare feet are sometimes equipped with immense
silver-plated spurs. The features and build of the riders present every
variety of type, from the light-complexioned, brown-haired, red-bearded,
honest manliness of the ancestral Basque, to the copper-hued, straight
black-haired, narrow dark eyed, beardless chinned, flattened nosed, and
small wiry framed aboriginal Guarani.
[Illustration: PARAGUAY BELLES.]
The women are scantily, and in more civilized countries would be
considered immodestly, clad, wearing nothing but a white tunic of native
cotton, tied around the waist with a girdle of some gay color, often
handsomely embroidered. These tunics are usually fringed at the top and
bottom with native lace, and are always scrupulously clean. Cleanliness
is the rule in Paraguay, and it extends to everything--dwellings,
furniture, clothes, and person. Each house in the country has behind it
a garden, small or large, as the case may be, in which flowers are
sedulously cultivated. Flowers are a decoration that a Paraguayan girl
or woman is rarely without. The women are pretty and often handsome.
Dark eyes, long, wavy, dark hair, and a brunette complexion most
prevail; but the blond
[Illustration: COSTUMES OF THE INTERIOR.]
type, with blue eyes and golden curls, indicative of Basque descent, is
by no means rare. Their hands and feet are almost universally delicate
and small, and their forms, at least till frequent maternity has
sacrificed beauty to usefulness, are simply perfect. The people seem to
be always good-natured, the women particularly, who laugh, chat, and
joke among themselves and with their customers, and are courteous and
generous. Unlike many of their South American neighbors, they are as
honest as they are gentle. A brighter, kinder, truer, more affectionate,
and more devotedly faithful person than the Paraguayan girl exists
nowhere. The women are more regardful of their beauty than in other
countries, and the Paraguayan girl is never without a bit of decoration,
ear-rings, a necklace, a bunch of flowers, or something of that sort;
but they all smoke, young and old.
[Illustration: AN INTERIOR TOWN.]
Some of the native ceremonies are peculiar and beautiful. When a couple
are married, the bridal bed is always covered with flowers, and each
neighbor contributes something towards giving them an outfit, even if it
is nothing but a wooden spoon or a gourd cup. Their funerals are
conducted after the ordinary formula of the Roman Catholic Church, but
it is customary to hold a sort of wake over the dead, as in Ireland.
Their market-days occur twice a week, and on Sunday there is the largest
gathering and the greatest display, the people coming together after
mass in the morning, and remaining about the plaza all day, enjoying a
sort of festival which invariably closes in the evening with a dance.
The dances are usually of the European kind--quadrilles, waltzes,
polkas, mazourkas, and lanciers, interspersed with Paraguayan
figures--the _cielo_, the _media caña_ (a great favorite, and very
lively), the _Montenero_, and some variations which were inherited from
the aboriginal races. Cigars, cigarettes, sweets, refreshments,
drinks--among which last _caña_, the rum of the country, comes
foremost--are freely distributed in the intervals of the dances, and the
ball is kept up till morning light. The women, seated around the room,
each waiting her turn to dance, while the men gossip in groups outside
the door, are dressed in Paraguayan fashion, with the long white
_tupoi_, or tunic, which is deeply embroidered around the borders, and
is often fringed with the beautiful home-made lace of the country;
sometimes with silk skirts or brightly colored petticoats, and a broad
colored sash; some of them wearing slippers, others barefooted.
[Illustration: HOME, SWEET HOME.]
[Illustration: THE MANDIOCA.]
The country about Asuncion is the very perfection of quiet rural beauty.
The scenery resembles the prettiest parts of New England, enhanced by
the richness of the verdure of the palm-trees with which the whole
country is studded. The cultivated land is divided into fenced fields,
wherein grow maize, mandioca, and sugar-cane, and the cottages dotted
about complete the pleasantness of the picture. There are roads in every
direction--not kept in first-rate condition, but still good; the
cross-roads, which are not so much worked, are beautiful green lanes of
considerable width, and for the most part perfectly straight. In some
places the country presents the appearance of a splendid park.
The attractions of Paraguay are its agricultural and pastoral resources;
and the timber-lands are said to be the finest in the world, the forests
being situated in the northern part of the republic, and reaching an
unmeasured distance into the heart of Brazil--as far as the Amazon River
to the northward, and far into the mountain regions of Bolivia to the
eastward.
Between Paraguay and the Andes stretches a vast country known as “El
Gran Chaco,” a region almost unexplored, and which offers fine grazing
land and excellent pasture for cattle, besides the timber along the
streams which water it profusely. Several enterprising colonists,
English and German, have gone in there and opened sugar plantations,
producing enormous crops; and the time will soon come when a large
portion of the sugar supply of South America will be derived from this
source. The land of Paraguay is said to be unusually good for sugar, but
the chief products nowadays are mandioca, mate, and fruit. During the
war with Uruguay, Brazil, and the Argentine Republic, nearly all the
cattle were slaughtered; but new stock has been introduced, and very
large droves are now being pastured upon the ranges. The fruits comprise
nearly everything that is grown in the tropical or semi-tropical zones.
The oranges are said to be the finest in the world, and the pineapples
compare with those of Ecuador, which surpass anything raised upon the
western coast of South America. There are other very rich and wholesome
fruits, but the country is so far inland that they will never be
exported.
The mandioca is a root resembling the yam, from which is produced the
tapioca of commerce. Life and death are blended in the plant, but every
part of it is useful if properly treated, and is as essential to the
domestic economy of Brazil and Paraguay as rice is to China, or as
potatoes are to Ireland. It is served at every meal, from that taken
from the dinner-pail of the laborer to the banquet of the grandees, just
as bread is with us, and is made into as many forms of food as our
flour. There are four species of mandioca, but they differ
[Illustration: OX CART ON THE PAMPAS.]
only as one kind of apple differs from another, all serving the same
general purpose. The plant grows about four feet in height, and
resembles the tomato in its foliage. The stalk and leaves are excellent
fodder for cattle, and are often dried and used for their medicinal
properties by the old women of Paraguay. When eaten raw the root is a
deadly poison. Thirty-five drops of the juice were once administered as
an experiment to a negro who was under sentence of death, causing speedy
dissolution after five minutes of horrible convulsions. This poison is
mysteriously removed or neutralized by the application of heat, and the
root can be boiled or baked like a yam or sweet-potato. When cooked it
is almost pure starch, and contains ninety-five per cent. of nutritious
properties, being in fact as well as in fancy the staff of life of the
people. The roots are boiled, and are then ground in rude mills,
producing a powder about the color of buckwheat flour. Tapioca is a
refined mandioca, and is produced by a modern process, the flour being
reduced to a paste by boiling, and then allowed to crystallize. Very
little tapioca is manufactured in the country, but the raw product is
shipped to other parts of the world where the tapioca of commerce is
manufactured.
[Illustration: CURING YERBA MATE.]
A drink called _chicha_ is also made of mandioca by soaking the flour in
water and letting it ferment. It has a taste very much like malt or
yeast, and one glassful of it will last a lifetime for an American,
although the native will drink it by the quart without injury. It is a
rapid intoxicant, but leaves no deleterious effect, and the man who goes
upon a chicha spree will not wake up with a headache the next morning.
The chicha of Peru is made of the juice of the sugar-cane, and the
chicha of Chili of the juice of the grape. All these drinks have a
similar taste and a similar effect.
[Illustration: A SIESTA.]
Although the Paraguayans use considerable chicha, they are not an
intemperate people. This is largely due to their excessive fondness for
their native tea, the yerba mate, which they prefer to any alcoholic
drink, usually taking from ten to fifteen cups of it daily. It is a mild
stimulant, but is not intoxicating. The yerba mate is drunk all over the
southern half of South America, and is well adapted to the climate and
the requirements of the people, having a cool effect in the warm
weather, and a warm effect in the cold. The taste is very much like that
of catnip tea, as it has a bitter herbal flavor that is disagreeable at
first, but one comes to like it very soon. The South American would no
more refuse a cup of yerba mate than a German would a glass of beer.
Whenever he travels in foreign countries he always takes a supply along,
for it cannot be obtained in the United States or in Europe. In the
markets, by the road-side, in the gardens, and in the door-ways of their
homes, as commonly as the Cuban with his cigarette or the Irishman with
his dudeen, men and women can be seen at all hours of the day and night
with a mate cup in their hands. Instead of having beer-gardens or
wine-rooms, the people sit around the public places in Paraguay
drinking mate; and it is one of the few cases in existence where a
national habit of drinking improves the mental and physical condition of
the people.
Yerba mate grows wild in Paraguay in great copses, like hazel or
cranberries, but its quality improves under cultivation. Its uses were
originally discovered by the Jesuits, those inquisitive fellows who were
always prying into the secrets of nature as well as the secrets of State
and the souls of men. They were the best mining prospectors in South
America, and were constantly exercising their botanical and chemical
knowledge for the advantage of the people. The sappy twigs are picked
from the bushes, and are hung on frames over a fire to dry. When they
become crisp they are reduced to powder by being rubbed between the
hands. This powder is packed for export in green hides, which shrink
when exposed to the sun, and press the mate into a compact, solid mass.
Everybody carries a mate-cup and a tube called a _bombilla_. The cups
are usually ordinary gourds, but they are often made of cocoa-nut shells
and the shells of other nuts, and are sometimes beautifully carved. The
bombillas of the common people are bamboo stems with the pith punched
out; but the wealthy people have them made of silver, and often of gold.
The bamboo tubes are the most agreeable to use, as they do not conduct
the heat so rapidly, and never scald the lips, as the silver ones do.
The cups are half filled with powdered yerba mate, then boiling water is
poured in. Delicate drinkers always throw away this water, and fill the
cup again, as it is too bitter for their taste; but the habitual users
of the weed consider the first water as the best, and keep pouring in
water and sucking it through the tube until the strength of the powder
is exhausted, when the refuse is thrown out and the cup is refilled.
The _yerbales_, or mate fields, of Paraguay are said to cover three
million acres in their present state, and to produce an annual crop of
thirty thousand tons. During the reign of the tyrants Francia and Lopez
the exportation of mate was monopolized by the Government, and every
citizen was
[Illustration: A PARAGUAY HOTEL.]
compelled to pay as tribute-money a certain amount each year for the
benefit of the despots, being driven to it by taskmasters, as were the
children of Israel to the making of bricks in Egypt. But under the new
regime the tea-forests have been leased to an Argentine firm, which pays
a royalty of one dollar a ton to the Government. This concession was
given when the Treasury was empty and the Government was greatly in need
of money, so that what might have been a very productive source of
income was sacrificed for a little cash in hand.
[Illustration: NATIVE PAPPOOSE AND CRADLE.]
The export goes to the Argentine Republic, Uruguay, and Chili. Several
attempts have been made to send it to Europe, but they were not
successful. During early times the Queen of Spain prohibited the
importation of yerba mate by her subjects, on the ground that it was
productive of barrenness in women, but the rapidly increasing population
of the River Plate countries, where it is used to the greatest extent,
seems to prove the fallacy of her Majesty’s theory. In Uruguay, where
the women are scarcely ever seen without a mate-cup in their hands, the
vital statistics show a larger percentage of births than in any other
country in the world; and there is something curious in the fact
before-mentioned, that the number of males born in that country is so
much greater than the number of females. No attempt has ever been made
to introduce mate into this country, and the consumption of the article
will probably always be confined to South America.
Paraguay tobacco is used all over South America. It is rank, black, and
full of nicotine, but it makes a very good cigarette, being about as
strong as the blackest Turkish tobacco, or “perique.” Everybody in
Paraguay smokes--men, women, and children--and their cigarettes are
made of the native tobacco and corn-husks. During the last few years
several political refugees from Cuba have found a resting-place in
Paraguay, and have experimented with native tobacco on the Cuban plan.
These experiments have shown that, where properly cultivated and
properly cured, this tobacco is as good as any raised in the West
Indies; but the natives let it grow wild, and take no pains either in
its cultivation or in the treatment of the leaves.
[Illustration: A HACIENDA.]
The timber of Paraguay is very fine, and includes almost every variety
known to arboriculture, from the finest light woods that may replace
those of China and Japan to the heavy and tough varieties that sink in
water like iron, and are indestructible. For lack of energy and
saw-mills, the forests, so far, are almost untouched. The dwellings and
other buildings of the country are made of adobe, and the small quantity
of dressed lumber used there comes from Canada or from the United
States. Two American saw-mills have recently been introduced, and the
water-power is sufficient to operate them at a small expense. The timber
regions are full of streams, which can be utilized for floating logs and
rafts, and nature seems to have provided every facility for the
development of their extensive resources.
[Illustration: PEOPLE OF “EL GRAN CHACO.”]
Along the western border of Paraguay lies an immense territory, in some
parts reported to be arid and waste for want of water, but in others
filled with a succession of rivers, and destined in time to be one of
the most valuable portions of the Argentine Republic. It is called “El
Gran
[Illustration: AN ARMADILLO.]
Chaco.” It extends from the Parana River to Bolivia, and is separated on
the east from Paraguay by the river of the same name. It is divided by
the river Vermijo into two almost equal parts, one called the “Chaco
Austral” and the other “Chaco Boreal,” the latter extending to latitude
20° south, and bounded on the north by the Bolivian province of
Chiquitos. The “Chaco Boreal” is an uninterrupted plain, elevated about
four thousand feet above the level of the sea, and divided into the most
beautiful forests, with intervening meadows, as if made purposely for
the raising of cattle. The Austral or Southern Chaco lies between the
Vermijo on the north, the Parana on the east, and the province of Santa
Fé on the south. It is completely level, and is richly endowed by
nature, not only with a deep soil, but with most magnificent forests. As
yet these vast regions are almost exclusively occupied by wild Indians.
A large portion has never been explored, and hence but little is yet
known of the interior, or of its treasures of vegetable wealth. Only
where it skirts along the Parana and Paraguay rivers, with here and
there a small clearing and settlement, the nucleus of a number of
agricultural colonies, has anything been scientifically determined in
reference to its timber resources. The region possesses an immense
advantage in great water-courses flowing along its eastern borders, and
the smaller streams which penetrate its interior, and are navigable for
many hundreds of miles. Thus all its vast wealth of precious woods and
valuable timber is rendered accessible not only to Buenos Ayres, but as
ocean ships can load along its banks, it is also accessible to the
markets of the world, without the necessity of transshipment. The
wood-choppers are at work, and the quantities of all kinds of precious
woods shipped down the rivers are becoming greater and greater every
year.
[Illustration: A RANCH ON EL GRAN CHACO.]
The number of horned cattle in Paraguay is now estimated at six hundred
thousand, and there is said to be pasturage for several million within
the limits of the republic, and an unlimited area in El Gran Chaco
beyond the timber regions on a plain similar to New Mexico, rising in
great terraces or steppes to the foot-hills of the Andes. The elevation
of this area above the sea is from four to eight thousand feet, and
although it borders upon the tropics, it is said to be an excellent
range, and the ranchmen of the Argentine Republic are contemplating it
with covetous eyes. No industry pays so well in Paraguay as
cattle-raising. The severe frosts and droughts which at times annoy the
ranchmen of the Argentine Republic are unknown there; the streams are
numerous and perennial, the cattle fatten quicker, attain greater
weight, and afford a better quality of beef, owing to the nutritious
grass and abundance of water. Young cattle, as before stated, may be
bought in the Argentine Republic and transported by river steamer to
Paraguay for twelve or thirteen dollars per head, and land can be
purchased at about twenty cents an acre from the Government.
RIO DE JANEIRO.
THE CAPITAL OF BRAZIL.
The name of the capital of Brazil means “River of January,” and in the
native tongue is pronounced _Reeo-day-Hay-nay-ray-oh_. When the ancient
mariners who discovered the Brazilian coast passed through the narrow
gate-way to the harbor, and saw the beautiful bay in the amphitheatre of
mountains surrounded by eternal verdure, they supposed they were
entering the mouth of a river that would lead them to the Enchanted
Land; and when they found out their mistake they despised the place so
much that they did not even have the good-nature to christen it after a
saint, but marked it on their charts simply the river discovered in
January.
The bay around which the city lies is famous for its beauty, and rivals
that of Naples or the Golden Horn. The panorama is ever changing with
the shifting clouds, and in this country everything is intense. Nowhere
is the contrast between sunshine and shadow so strong, and the outlines
of the clouds lie distinctly upon the landscape where their shadows
fall, changing the tint of the foliage and flowers. The mountains, which
furnish a noble background for the picture, are so steep, so rugged, and
so high as to exaggerate the peace of the water, and furnish another
striking contrast in their dark and frowning lines to the white
buildings of the city and its countless towers. These mountains seem to
enclose the town and the bay like a wall, and leave no passage in or out
except at the entrance to the harbor, which is scarcely wide enough for
two vessels to pass. Along their base lies the city, like a lazy white
monster, sleeping under the shade of imperial palms in a garden of
never-failing colors and eternal loveliness.
[Illustration: BAY OF RIO DE JANEIRO.]
Viewed from the deck of a ship in the harbor, the city of Rio looks like
a fragment of fairy-land--a cluster of alabaster castles decorated with
vines; but the illusion is instantly dispelled upon landing, for the
streets are narrow, damp, dirty, reeking with repulsive odors, and
filled with vermin-covered beggars and wolfish-looking dogs. The whole
town seems to be in a continual perspiration, and the atmosphere is so
enervating that the stranger feels an almost irresistible tendency to
lie down. There is now and then a lovely little spot where Nature has
displayed her beauties unhindered, and the environs of the city are
filled with the luxury of tropical vegetation; but there are only a few
fine residences, a few pleasant promenades, and a few clusters of regal
palms, which look down upon the filth and squalor of the town with
dainty indifference. The palm is the peacock of trees. Nothing can
degrade it, and the filth in which it often grows only serves to
heighten its beauty. Behind some of the residences of the better classes
are gardens in which grow flowers that baffle the painter’s skill, and
foliage that is the ideal of luxuriance and gracefulness. They are
little glimpses of green and gold in a desert of misery and dirt. A few
years ago there was not even a sewer in Rio, and all the garbage and
offal of the city was carried through the streets on the heads of men,
and dumped into the sea. Now there are drains under the principal
streets, but they seem to be of little use, as the main thoroughfares
are abominable, and one wonders what the less pretentious ones may be.
The pavements are of the roughest cobble-stone, the streets are so
narrow that scarcely a breath of air can enter them, and the sunshine
cannot reach the pools of filth that steam and fester in the gutters,
breeding plagues.
[Illustration: A STREET IN RIO.]
The city is in the shape of a narrow crescent, lying between the
mountains and the bay, nowhere more than half a mile wide, and
stretching for a distance of nine or ten miles. It can never be any
wider, but grows at either end. The chief residence street lies along
the edge of the water, but the business houses are crowded into the
lower portion of the town, damp, gloomy, and dismal, the streets being
so narrow that carriages are forbidden to enter them during the busy
hours of the day. A fire that would burn out the older portion of the
city would be a blessing, and might redeem Rio from some of its filth
and ugliness.
[Illustration: THE CITY OF RIO FROM THE BAY.]