CHAPTER XV. 



Paraguay, 



F tlie South American States, Bolivia and Paraguay alone have no 

 seaward outlet through their own territor}"-. But, alike in this, 

 these Hispano-American Republics differ greatly in many other 

 respects. One occupies the summit and steep scarps of a plateau 

 12,000 or 13,000 feet above the sea; the other, comprised like a 

 " Mesopotamia " between two large rivers, is a region of plaius and low hills, of 

 marshes and woodlands. 



But the two countries present certain analogies in their historic evolution. In 

 both regions the nation was developed in seclusion from the outer world, the Boli- 

 vian on the islands and around the shores of Lake Titicaci, the Paraguayan in 

 the clearings of the great sub-tropical woodlands. Their growth has been com- 

 pared to that of the pulp round the hard nucleus of stone fruit. Thus may be 

 explained the fact that Bolivia lost the strip of territory on the oceanic slope of 

 the Andes which her neighbours of the Pacific seaboard had at first left in her 

 possession. This territory did not belong naturally to the State, but was a sort of 

 dependency assigned to it by a purely conventional arrangement, and of which it 

 was deprived by a fresh convention when the original conditions were changed. 

 Paraguay also still remains confined to her forest glades, the population, enjoying 

 the advantages of a seaward outlet, having naturally gravitated towards other 

 centres of attraction. 



A chief factor in the historic evolution of Paraffuav was the ascendancy of the 

 Jesuits, who, however, were absolute masters only in the southern part of the 

 country. Their dream of universal empire could never be aught but an utopia in 

 the Old World, where they had to struggle with an innovating spirit, diametri- 

 cally opposed to their ideal. Yet even here they did not despair of success, and 

 there were times when, they might seem on the eve of acquiring the control of the 

 destinies of Europe, and of bending mankind to the yoke which they had framed. 

 But having failed before the ferment of free thought in Europe, th?y might 



