CHAPTER XXV.

VISITING A CATTLE ESTATE.--THE LASSO AND BOLAS.--ASCENDING THE PARAGUAY AND PARANA RIVERS.--ROSARIO AND ASUNCION.--PARAGUAYAN WAR.--INDUSTRIES OF THE COUNTRY.--MATE.

"The terms Argentine Republic and River Plate are misnomers," said Frank, in his journal; "Argentine Republic means 'Republic of Silver,' and 'Rio de La Plata' has the same significance applied to the great stream. There is no silver on the banks of the river or anywhere near it; argentiferous deposits have been found in the mountainous parts of the country, but they have not been worked to any extent. The wealth of the republic is in the fertility of the soil, and its grazing facilities. Precious or other metals do not figure in the exports, which are almost entirely confined to hides, beef, horns, tallow, and wool.

"After passing the mouth of the Uruguay we were frequently quite near the shore, and could see great herds of cattle grazing wherever the country was open. We stopped at one of the _estancias_, or cattle estates; an accident to the machinery detained us several hours, and we accepted the invitation of one of the guachos to ride out about a mile from the landing and witness the operation of branding cattle.

"It was conducted without any regard to the feelings of the animal which received the brand. He was singled out from his fellows by one of the _vaqueros_, or herdsmen, who was mounted on a swift horse and equipped with a lasso, a long rope with a noose at the end. The lasso was thrown over the horns of the victim, or, perhaps, over one of his fore-legs; in either case it brought him to the ground, or enabled the vaquero to lead him to where several men stood ready for their share of the work.

"They held him firmly on the earth, and then the branding-iron, which had been heated to redness, was applied to his hide, and held there with such force that it burned in deeply. The bellowing of the poor brute was unheeded; when the iron was removed he was allowed to rise and gallop off to his companions, and he lost no time in doing so. Then the iron was returned to the fire and made ready for the next victim, and so the operation went on with great rapidity. The mark of the brand is indelible not only while the animal lives, but after his hide has passed through the hands of the tanner.

"Another weapon of the vaquero is the _bolas_, which consists of two balls joined by a leather thong six or eight feet in length; they are usually round stones, or balls of iron or lead, and in either case are covered with leather, which is attached to the thong. They are swung round the head until they attain great velocity, and then hurled at the animal; they twist around his legs, and bring him to the ground, or, at all events, hamper his speed so that he can be overtaken.

"Another kind of bolas consists of three balls united by thongs to a common centre; they are more difficult to handle than the other sort, and are chiefly used for hunting the guanaco and ostrich on the plains in the southern part of the republic, and in Patagonia. Fred and I tried to use the bolas, the ordinary kind, but we found that it went generally in the opposite direction from what we intended. One of the guachos showed us how to do it, and set us to trying to 'bolear' a stake driven in the ground ten yards away. We didn't hit the stake a single time, but we should assuredly have brought each other down if we had not stood at safe distances apart. When a novice is practising, the guachos require that he shall be far out of any possibility of reaching them by a stray shot.

"'Now see how I'll do it,' said one of the guachos, as he started in pursuit of a steer that was escaping from the herd.

"While the animal was at full gallop the bolas went twining around his hind-legs, bringing him to a dead halt, but without injuring him in the least. The guacho repeated the performance two or three times in succession, and showed that he was thoroughly skilled in the use of the weapon, which he launched with terrible swiftness and unerring accuracy.

"The hunters in Patagonia generally carry no other weapons than the lasso and the bolas in their pursuit of the guanaco and ostrich. Wild horses are tripped up with the bolas and then secured with the lasso, and sometimes the leaden ball, hitting a horse fairly on the forehead, will bring him to the ground as lifeless as though shot through the heart.

"When the repairs to the engines were completed a gun was fired by the steamer, and we galloped back to the landing. We steamed on until late in the evening, passing alternate stretches of forest and open ground, and on two or three occasions feeling the sand-bars with our keel. This mode of sounding was not to the liking of the captain and pilot, and so we anchored until morning.

"For the first two hundred miles of its course as we ascend it the Parana is a labyrinth of islands and channels; they are so numerous as to bewilder the novice, and even the old pilots say they are often perplexed by the multiplicity of ways open to them. The islands are covered with fruit trees, from which the markets of Buenos Ayres and Montevideo are supplied, and they overhang the water so that in some places a boat may be loaded without its occupant stepping on shore. The forests are gay with flowers in bloom, the air is filled with fragrance, little pools and nooks in the islands are covered with aquatic plants, and the luxuriance of vegetation is so great that we were continually reminded of the lower Amazon.

"If only the mosquitoes had let us alone we should have found the journey one of the most interesting we have ever made.

"The country is rapidly filling up with inhabitants, who come from all parts of Europe, as already mentioned, but there is yet an immense area that awaits settlement. We ask for the Indians, but have difficulty in finding them; at various times they have had quarrels with the settlers, but soon found it was better to remain on terms of peace. As the country has been occupied with farms and cattle-ranches, they have found a scarcity of game which has led them to retire into the interior. They are rarely seen on the lower part of the river, except where they have hired out as herdsmen to the owners of the cattle estates, the only kind of labor they are willing to engage in.

"But as we go on we find the river narrower, its banks higher, and the islands less numerous. Two hundred miles from the mouth of the Parana proper, and four hundred from the ocean, we came to Rosario, and remained several hours. The city surprised us by its extent and attractive features. In 1854 it was a wretched town with a few hundred huts, and perhaps three thousand inhabitants; now its population numbers fifty thousand, and it is next to Buenos Ayres in commercial importance. It is a port of entry for ships of all nations.

"We saw steamers from half the countries of Europe, and especially from England, taking in their cargoes at Rosario. It has fine and well-paved streets, which are provided with gas and railways, and lined with houses that would do honor to any city of its size in North America; ships of any draught may lie close up to the high bluff on which it stands, and there is no occasion for building expensive docks. There are several railways running to the interior of the republic, and one of them is intended to traverse the Andes, and connect with the Chilian lines to the Pacific coast.

"The Salada, the first great tributary of the Parana from the west, joins the main stream about three hundred and fifty miles above its mouth. We made several stops at towns and cattle estates between Rosario and Corrientes, which is a prosperous place on the east bank of the Parana, just below its junction with the Paraguay River. It is a port of entry, like Rosario, and has a good deal of foreign commerce; many German and English merchants are established here, and are getting almost a monopoly of the foreign trade.

"At Corrientes we saw several Chaco Indians, who are the aboriginals of this region. The country on the west bank is known as _El Gran Chaco_; and though part of it has been settled, there is a very large region still in the hands of the Indians. Unlike their brethren lower down, they remain independent or nearly so; they do not disturb the whites unless first interfered with, and then they are ready for battle. Many a soldier of Paraguay and the Argentine Republic has fallen before their lances and arrows in the last fifty years.

"One day, when the steamer was running close to the west bank of the river, we saw a group of horsemen darting among the trees. Inspection with our glasses showed them to be Indians, and the captain confirmed our observation. As we went slowly on they got up a sort of race with the steamer, and gave us a good chance to see them. All were on horseback, men, women, and children; they had neither saddles nor bridles, but guided their horses with thongs, which were fastened around the lower jaws. They shouted and gesticulated for us to stop, but we had no business with them, as they had nothing which the steamer's people wanted to buy.

"They are formidable enemies in war, as they are fearless and skilled horsemen, quite the equals of the Comanches or other wild men of our western plains. In their fights with the Paraguayan troops they have been known to stand up on the backs of their horses to resist an attack; just as the attacking force was within shooting distance they dropped astride of their animals, and with wild whoops dashed forward, creating a stampede among the frightened horses of their enemies, and making a scene of wild disorder.

"Lieutenant Page of the United States Navy explored the Parana and Paraguay rivers and their tributaries in 1854, and visited some of these Indian tribes. He describes the Angaite tribe as a people of remarkable stature, many of them exceeding six feet in height, and all finely formed and athletic. The old Jesuits give wonderful accounts of the great age to which these people live; they say that if one dies at eighty he is said to have been cut off in the flower of his existence. Men of a hundred years old will mount fiery horses and subdue them, and some of these people have reached the extraordinary age of one hundred and twenty years! One of their chiefs, when asked how old he was, said he did not know, but he was married and had a son when the church at Asuncion was built. As the church was then one hundred and five years old the warrior had a ripe old age, supposing, of course, he told the truth.

"They are skilful with the lasso and bolas, and also with their spears and bows. The whites try to prevent their obtaining fire-arms, but somehow they manage to get them through traders, and are not slow in learning how to use them. They shoot fishes in the streams with their bows and arrows, and though a fish may be three or four feet under water they rarely fail to pierce him. As with most Indian tribes, the men engage in hunting and breaking horses, and leave all the drudgery to the women.

"Passing the mouth of the Parana, we ascended the Paraguay River to Asuncion, the capital of the republic and its principal city. It has suffered terribly in the wars which Paraguay has waged with her neighbors, but is now fairly prosperous; if the country will not go to war again Asuncion may hope for a satisfactory future, as it has a good position, and is connected with the interior by a line of railway nearly two hundred miles long. We have heard many stories about the war which lasted from 1865 to 1870, and was very near making a complete ruin of Paraguay. Perhaps this is a good place to say something about it.

"General Lopez, who was then president and commander-in-chief of the armies, revived some old disputes with Brazil and the Argentine Republic concerning the boundaries between Paraguay and those countries. He began hostilities by capturing a Brazilian steamer which was passing Asuncion on a peaceful mission, and seizing two Argentine steamers near Corrientes. Then he surrounded that town with his army and threatened its capture, and he sent assistance to some revolutionists in Uruguay who were trying to overthrow the government of that country.

"The result of all this was that the three countries made war upon Paraguay, and they agreed not to stop fighting until they had completely conquered it, and made it powerless to go to war again. They carried out their programme completely; Asuncion was occupied, the army was defeated in several battles, and General Lopez was killed, in March, 1870. Then peace was declared, but it found the country prostrated, burdened with a heavy debt, and reduced in territory. Before the war the population of Paraguay was about half a million; it was estimated that 170,000 men were killed during the struggle, or died of disease consequent upon it, and that 50,000 women perished by famine and exposure in the forests and swamps. And all this for the ambition and avarice of one man, General Lopez!

"A gentleman who was here during the war tells us that all business was suspended, and the river was occupied by fleets of war-ships and gun-boats, and defended by forts. The few ports on the river were converted into military stations, and the expenditure of money and credit, as well as the loss of life, on both sides was something enormous. There were countless scenes of horror, such as are witnessed in every war, and the stories of bravery and cowardice, honor and treachery, devotion and suffering, would fill volumes. Before the war ended the soldiers of Lopez were barefooted, and almost without clothing, and many of their enemies were in an equally sorry plight. This gentleman visited the headquarters of Lopez one day, and found a soldier on duty there wearing nothing but a cloth around his waist and a cap on his head. Thus dressed, and with his gun on his shoulder, he paced in front of the general with the dignity of a Prussian grenadier.

"From all I can learn, I judge that the Paraguayan people fought bravely and suffered terribly, and were overpowered by superior numbers. Lopez appears to have been a man of pleasant manners in social life, but he had no care for the good of his country, and sacrificed all its interests to his own purposes. Before the war broke out most of the commerce was in his hands; nothing could be imported or exported without his permission, and the payment of a tax which went into his pockets. He provoked the war in hope of establishing a kingdom, and failed, as he deserved to fail.

"The country has few manufactures, and the principal industries are agriculture and the raising of sheep, cattle, and horses. In agriculture, the exported articles are tobacco and yerba mate or Paraguayan tea; beef, mutton, hides, and wool are the products of the grazing lands which find their way to other countries, and there are some shipments of timber and fruit.

"Of late years an industry of a new kind has sprung up on the River Plate and its tributaries, the shipment of frozen meat to England and the continent of Europe. On our way up the river we stopped at one of the estancias where this business was conducted, and had a chance to see some of its details. The manager kindly took us through the establishment, and explained the various processes.

"The animals to be slaughtered and shipped--whether cattle or sheep--are killed and dressed in the usual way. The beeves are divided into quarters, but the sheep are kept whole; in either case the meat is taken to a large room, where it is hung on racks, so that no two pieces shall come in contact with each other. This room is really an enormous refrigerator, and when it is filled the doors are shut tight, and the air within is cooled below the freezing-point by an artificial process.

"When the meat has been properly frozen, it is removed from the room and carried on board the steamer at the dock. This steamer has her hold arranged on the refrigerating system, with several inches of thick felt between double walls of planking, so that heat is conducted away very slowly. When the hold is filled the cooling apparatus is set in operation, and the temperature is lowered to about 33 deg. Fahrenheit; the apparatus is kept at work during the entire voyage, and until the steamer delivers her cargo in Europe. The meat thus remains perfectly fresh, although the ship passes the equator and remains for days and days under a tropical sun.

"Meat is very cheap in South America and very dear in Europe. The managers of the new enterprise claim that they have met with complete success, and will soon be able to feed the whole of Europe on beef and mutton grown on the pampas of South America. They have many prejudices to overcome, besides the opposition which the graziers and butchers of the Old World are making to the prospect of having their home industries ruined by these importations.

"We wanted to ascend the Paraguay to its head-waters, but circumstances did not permit, and we turned back from Asuncion. We went to the end of the railway, and had a delightful ride through a diversified country; forest, pampas, hills, valleys, mountains, and plains alternated rapidly, and gave us a succession of surprises. Numerous herds of cattle and horses told of the wealth of the country in live-stock, and if we had not seen the herds we should have known of the prevailing industry by the piles of hides that awaited shipment at the railway stations.

"We are in the land of _yerba mate_, or Paraguay tea, and have drunk nothing else at breakfast and other meals; of course, we have tried it frequently in our journeyings in South America, but have never adhered closely to it until now. Perhaps you would like to know more fully about it.

"Well, everybody drinks it, or, rather, sucks it, as the leaves are broken into powder while drying, and not preserved whole, like Chinese tea-leaves. Fred and I have provided ourselves with _bombillas_, as the tubes are called, after the custom of the European residents, and whenever the cup is circulating we come in for our share. The dry powder is poured into a cup or bowl and covered with boiling water; when it has stood long enough for the infusion to be drawn it is sucked through the bombilla, precisely as people in New York take lemonades through straws.

"The natives pass the cup and tube from one to another, but the European residents generally carry tubes of their own, and only the cup is passed around. The tube may be a reed or a straw, or of metal or glass, according to the fancy of the owner; ours are of glass, and we carry them in cases to prevent their being broken.

"Everybody drinks _mate_, and the Europeans who come here take to it with the greatest readiness. It has the same refreshing qualities as are found in tea and coffee; the chemists say it contains _caffeine_ and _theine_, together with caffeo-tannic acid, and it is sometimes recommended by physicians for their patients. We are told that there is no part of the world where Chinese tea is consumed by the inhabitants in as great a proportion as is mate by the South Americans. It is taken at meals and between meals; at all hours of the day and night, and also between those hours.

"And now for the plant. Its scientific name is _Ilex Paraguayensis_; it is a species of holly, growing on the banks of rivers in Paraguay and in the mountains of Brazil and Bolivia. It reaches a height of fifteen or twenty feet, and its leaves are four or five inches long, with serrated edges. The leaves are dried by artificial heat on a network of small poles, over a hard, earthen floor; when thoroughly roasted they are beaten with sticks until reduced to the powder I have already mentioned, when they fall through the network to the floor.

"This powder is collected and packed in bags of hide; each bag holds about two hundred pounds of mate, and in this condition it is shipped to market. About five million pounds of mate are sent every year from Paraguay to other South American countries, but very little goes to North America or to Europe. The outside world has not yet learned of its virtues to any appreciable extent.

"'Do you sweeten it as you do Chinese tea?' I hear some one asking.

"Generally you do not. The natives almost never do, but some of the Europeans, who were accustomed to sweetened tea in their old homes, put a little sugar in the mate. Others put in a slice of lemon, just as the Russians do with their tea; Fred and I have taken our mate plain, and like it very much."

* * * * *

"During our return to Buenos Ayres," continued Frank, "we went a short distance up the Parana, which is longer than the Paraguay River, but smaller in volume. Its banks are higher and more picturesque, but the country bordering the two streams appears to be pretty much the same. The river can be ascended a long distance; in the upper part it can only be navigated by boats of light draught, as it spreads over sand-bars, and is shallow in many places.

"The Parana rises in the mountains back of Rio Janeiro, and its head-springs are not more than one hundred miles from that city. Several streams unite to form this river; where it leaves the mountain region it has a fall which is said, by many travellers, to be inferior to no other in the world, not even to Niagara. Here is the way it is described:

"'After collecting the waters of several rivers on both banks, and especially those of the Tiete and Paranapanema from the east, the Parana increases in width until it attains nearly four thousand five hundred yards, a short distance above the falls; then the immense mass of water is suddenly confined within a gorge of two hundred feet, through which it dashes with fury to the ledge, whence it is precipitated to a depth of fifty-six feet. It is computed that the volume of water per minute is equal to one million tons; the velocity of the flood through the gorge is forty miles an hour, and the roar of the cataract is distinctly audible at a distance of thirty miles.'

"If we can't have the pleasure of seeing the Guayra or Salto Grande, as the cataract of the Parana is called, we will console ourselves with the reflection that we have seen Niagara, and are disinclined to believe it has any superior in the world. Any way, it is three times as high as the cataract of the Parana, and if anybody doubts that there is a million tons of water passing over the American and Horseshoe falls every minute he is at liberty to count them."