In some respects similar to the experience of Aime Bonpland was that of
Ludwig Halberger. Like the former, an ardent lover of Nature, as also
an accomplished naturalist, he too had selected South America as the
scene of his favourite pursuits. On the great river Parana--better,
though erroneously, known to Europeans as the La Plata--he would find an
almost untrodden field. For although the Spanish naturalist, Azara, had
there preceded him, the researches of the latter were of the olden time,
and crude imperfect kind, before either zoology or botany had developed
themselves into a science.
Besides, the Prussian was moderately fond of the chase, and to such a
man the great _pampas_ region, with its pumas and jaguars, its
ostriches, wild horses, and grand _guazuti_ stags, offered an
irresistible attraction. There he could not only indulge his natural
taste, but luxuriate in them.
He, too, had resided nine years in Paraguay, and something more. But,
unlike Bonpland, his residence there was voluntary. Nor did he live
alone. Lover of Nature though he was, and addicted to the chase,
another kind of love found its way to his heart, making himself a
captive. The dark eyes of a Paraguayan girl penetrated his breast,
seeming brighter to him than the plumage of the gaudiest birds, or the
wings of the most beautiful butterflies.
"_El Gilero_" the blonde--as these swarthy complexioned people were wont
to call the Teutonic stranger--found favour in the eyes of the young
Paraguayense, who reciprocating his honest love, consented to become his
wife; and became it. She was married at the age of fourteen, he being
over twenty.
"So young for a bride!" many of my readers will exclaim. But that is
rather a question of race and climate. In Spanish America, land of
feminine precocity, there is many a wife and mother not yet entered on
her teens!
For nigh ten years Halberger lived happily with his youthful _esposa_;
all the happier that in due time a son and daughter--the former
resembling himself, the latter a very image of her mother--enlivened
their home with sweet infantine prattle. And as the years rolled by, a
third youngster came to form part of the family circle--this neither son
nor daughter, but an orphan child of the Senora's sister deceased. A
boy he was, by name Cypriano.
The home of the hunter-naturalist was not in Assuncion, but some twenty
miles out in the "_campo_." He rarely visited the capital, except on
matters of business. For a business he had; this of somewhat unusual
character. It consisted chiefly in the produce of his gun and
insect-net. Many a rare specimen of bird and quadruped, butterfly and
beetle, captured and preserved by Ludwig Halberger, at this day adorns
the public museums of Prussia and other European countries. But for the
dispatch and shipment of these he would never have cared to show himself
in the streets of Assuncion; for, like all true naturalists, he had no
affection for city life. Assuncion, however, being the only shipping
port in Paraguay, he had no choice but repair thither whenever his
collections became large enough to call for exportation.
Beginning life in South America with moderate means, the Prussian
naturalist had prospered: so much, as to have a handsome house, with a
tract of land attached, and a fair retinue of servants; these last, all
"Guanos," a tribe of Indians long since tamed and domesticated. He had
been fortunate, also, in securing the services of a _gaucho_, named
Gaspar, a faithful fellow, skilled in many callings, who acted as his
_mayor-domo_ and man of confidence.
In truth, was Ludwig Halberger in the enjoyment of a happy existence,
and eminently prosperous. Like Aime Bonpland, he was fairly on the road
to fortune; when, just as with the latter, a cloud overshadowed his
life, coming from the self-same quarter. His wife, lovely at fourteen,
was still beautiful at twenty-four, so much as to attract the notice of
Paraguay's Dictator. And with Dr Francia to covet was to possess,
where the thing coveted belonged to any of his own subjects. Aware of
this, warned also of Francia's partiality by frequent visits with which
the latter now deigned to honour him, Ludwig Halberger saw there was no
chance to escape domestic ruin, but by getting clear out of the country.
It was not that he doubted the fidelity of his wife; on the contrary,
he knew her to be true as she was beautiful. How could he doubt it,
since it was from her own lips he first learnt of the impending danger?
Away from Paraguay, then--away anywhere--was his first and
quickly-formed resolution, backed by the counsels of his loyal partner
in life. But the design was easier than its execution; the last not
only difficult, but to all appearance impossible. For it so chanced
that one of the laws of that exclusive land--an edict of the Dictator
himself--was to the point prohibitive; forbidding any foreigner who
married a native woman to take her out of the country, without having a
written permission from the Executive Head of the State. Ludwig
Halberger was a foreigner, his wife native born, and the Head of the
State Executive, as in every other sense, was Jose Gaspar Francia!
The case was conclusive. For the Prussian to have sought permission to
depart, taking his wife along with him, would have been more than
folly--madness--hastening the very danger he dreaded.
Flight, then? But whither, and in what direction? To flee into the
Paraguayan forests could not avail him, or only for a short respite.
These, traversed by the _cascarilleros_ and gatherers of yerba, all in
the Dictator's employ and pay, would be no safer than the streets of
Assuncion itself. A party of fugitives, such as the naturalist and his
family, could not long escape observation; and seen, they would as
surely be captured and carried back. The more surely from the fact that
the whole system of Paraguayan polity under Dr Francia's regime was one
of treachery and espionage, every individual in the land finding it to
his profit to do dirty service for "El Supremo"--as they styled their
despotic chief.
On the other side there was the river, but still more difficult would it
be to make escape in that direction. All along its bank, to the point
where it enters the Argentine territory, had Francia established his
military stations, styled _guardias_, where sentinels kept watch at all
hours, by night as in the day. For a boat to pass down, even the
smallest skiff, without being observed by some of these Argus-eyed
videttes, would have been absolutely impossible; and if seen as surely
brought to a stop, and taken back to Assuncion.
Revolving all these difficulties in his mind, Ludwig Halberger was
filled with dismay, and for a long time kept in a state of doubt and
chilling despair. At length, however, a thought came to relieve him--a
plan of flight, which promised to have a successful issue. He would
flee into the Chaco!
To the mind of any other man in Paraguay the idea would have appeared
preposterous. If Francia resembled the frying-pan, the Chaco to a
Paraguayan seemed the fire itself. A citizen of Assuncion would no more
dare to set foot on the further side of that stream which swept the very
walls of his town, than would a besieging soldier on the _glacis_ of the
fortress he besieged. The life of a white man caught straying in the
territory of "El Gran Chaco" would not have been worth a withey. If not
at once impaled on an Indian spear held in the hand of "Tova" or
"Guaycuru," he would be carried into a captivity little preferable to
death.
For all this, Ludwig Halberger had no fear of crossing over to the Chaco
side, nor penetrating into its interior. He had often gone thither on
botanising and hunting expeditions. But for this apparent recklessness
he had a reason, which must needs here be given. Between the Chaco
savages and the Paraguayan people there had been intervals of
peace--_tiempos de paz_--during which occurred amicable intercourse; the
Indians rowing over the river and entering the town to traffic off their
skins, ostrich feathers, and other commodities. On one of these
occasions the head chief of the Tovas tribe, by name Naraguana, having
imbibed too freely of _guarape_, and in some way got separated from his
people, became the butt of some Paraguayan boys, who were behaving
towards him just as the idle lads of London or the _gamins_ of Paris
would to one appearing intoxicated in the streets. The Prussian
naturalist chanced to be passing at the time; and seeing the Indian, an
aged man, thus insulted, took pity upon and rescued him from his
tormentors.
Recovering from his debauch, and conscious of the service the stranger
had done him, the Tovas chief swore eternal friendship to his generous
protector, at the same time proffering him the "freedom of the Chaco."
The incident, however, caused a rupture between the Tovas tribe and the
Paraguayan Government, terminating the _tiempo de paz_, which had not
since been renewed. More unsafe than ever would it have been for a
Paraguayan to set foot on the western side of the river. But Ludwig
Halberger knew that the prohibition did not extend to him; and relying
on Naraguana's proffered friendship, he now determined upon retreating
into the Chaco, and claiming the protection of the Tovas chief.
Luckily, his house was not a great way from the river's bank, and in the
dead hour of a dark night, accompanied by wife and children--taking
along also his Guano servants, with such of his household effects as
could be conveniently carried, the faithful Caspar guiding and managing
all--he was rowed across the Paraguay and up the Pilcomayo. He had been
told that at some thirty leagues from the mouth of the latter stream,
was the _tolderia_ of the Tovas Indians. And truly told; since before
sunset of the second day he succeeded in reaching it, there to be
received amicably, as he had anticipated. Not only did Naraguana give
him a warm welcome but assistance in the erection of his dwelling;
afterwards stocking his _estancia_ with horses and cattle caught on the
surrounding plains. These tamed and domesticated, with their progeny,
are what anyone would have seen in his _corrals_ in the year 1836, at
the time the action of our tale commences.