19133 "Republic of Counani" 



ideals of Brazil. He is a man of great stature and 

 genial personality, in both regards surprisingly like 

 Mr. Taft. Having greeted his host and hostess, 

 he approached me. At once I saw that he and Brezet 

 were unacquainted, and it was not easy to avoid mak- 

 ing an introduction. From this, however, I refrained, 

 feeling somehow very doubtful if either would relish 

 it. Afterward, when I explained the apparent dis- 

 courtesy to Lima, he seemed gratified at my restraint, 

 although Brazil, he said, had no fear of Counani's 

 defection. 



Brezet, it developed, was anxious to bring about the recog- 

 nition of Counani by Britain and America, probably in order 

 that the embryo nation might secure loans. But so far as I 

 know, nothing came of his mission except perhaps a left-handed 

 response from Germany, alleged details of which reached my 

 attention during the war when certain American journals 

 published the supposed diary of a German, the Countess von 

 Schaumburg, said to have been stolen from her at Berne. In 

 it she writes of meeting Lopez, " President of Counani" (Kunani, 

 she spelled it, as a German naturally would), in Rio Janeiro, 

 where he first gambled away the funds of his "republic," then 

 recouped his losses on a lucky lottery ticket. Filled with exuber- 

 ance at the favorable turn of fortune, he told the whole story 

 to the Countess (both vampire and spy by her own record), 

 who now saw her opportunity as a loyal agent of the Fatherland. 

 Having secured from German sources a consignment of arms 

 ostensibly for Lopez, she arranged with a company of German 

 reservists from agricultural settlements in Rio Grande do Sul 

 to go north and attack the small Counani force guarding the 

 guns, which they were thereupon to seize and transport back to 

 their district. 



This plan was now successfully carried out, the booty being 

 floated on a raft of logs up the Amazon and the Tapajos, a 

 tributary of which interlocks with the Paraguay, thence to be 

 borne across to Rio Grande do Sul. 1 What finally became of the 



1 See Vol. I, Chapter xiv, page 341. 



