HISTOBY OF PAEAGUAY. 295 



suddenly changed sides and took part with the Argento-Brazilians in repelling 

 the Paraguayan invasion. The little Republic, encircled by the two rivers, Parana 

 and Paraguay, as by a deep moat, held out for over five years against the allies. 

 During this disastrous war, one of the most terrible on record, Paraguay sacrificed 

 all her able-bodied men. Retreating inch by inch from one entrenched camp to 

 another, from Humaita to Aquidaban, the heroic army, reduced in numbers, but 

 animated by a patriotism of which the modern world offers no second example, 

 still defied the enemy by whom ii was vastly outnumbered. On the battle fields 

 the allies found little but dead bodies ; nor all of these, for many, fighting lassoed 

 round the waist b}' cords attached to the saddle-bow, were borne dead or dying 

 from the field by their mounts. Prisoners tore the bandages from their wounds ; 

 the vanquished preferred death to bondage ; the whole nation wished to perish, as 

 Numantium had perished. 



At last the manhood of the nation had almost entirely disappeared by war, 

 famine, and cholera. None survived except invalids, the infirm, the women and 

 children. Entrapped in a mountain gorge, the last heroic band fell with the 

 dictator. 



For many centuries, during which nevertheless so much frightful carnage had 

 been witnessed, humanity had not suffered from such a terrible struggle, attended 

 by such atrocious havoc and ruin. The utter destruction of this people, one of the 

 best and kindliest recorded in history, was primarily due to the enforced isolation 

 in which the Paraguayan nation had been kept from the very first, and to the 

 doctrine of collective and absolute submission with which it had been imbued by 

 its spiritual and temporal rulers. 



Boundaries — Extknt — Population. 



The present frontiers of Paraguay have been dictated by the conquerors. 

 The eastern section, which constitutes Paraguay proper, is strictly limited by 

 natural boundaries. Here the Rio Apa, constantly claimed before the war by the 

 Brazilians as their frontier, now separates Paraguay from Matto Grosso. The 

 great bend of the Parana above the Paraguay confluence encloses the republic on 

 its east and south sides. 



West of the Paraguay the whole of the Gran Chaco solitudes had been 

 claimed by Argentina, which, having appropriated the territory of the Cis- 

 Parana missions, now also wished to annex the Cis-Paraguayan section of the 

 wilderness. But Brazil, whose obvious interest it now is to maintain an indepen- 

 dent Paraguay as a " buffer State " against her powerful neighbours, failed to 

 support the claims of Argentina, and the question, on being referred to the 

 arbitration of the United States, was decided in favour of Paraguay. The Rio 

 Pilcomayo thus became the parting line, and all the inter-fluvial territory between 

 the Paraguay and the Parana was declared P iraguayan domain. 



Thanks to this addition Paraguay no longer remains the smallest of the South 

 American republics. But although larger in extent, she is greatly inferior in 



