Up the Paraguay 6i 



of palm. In the village dwell several hundred souls, 

 almost entirely the officers and soldiers and their families. 

 There is one long street. The one-story, daub-and-wattle 

 houses have low eaves and steep sloping roofs of palm- 

 leaves or of split palm-trunks. Under one or two old 

 but small trees there are rude benches; and for a part 

 of the length of the street there is a rough stone side- 

 walk. A little graveyard, some of the tombs very old, 

 stands at one end. As we passed down the street the 

 wives and the swarming children of the garrison were at 

 the doors and windows; there were women and girls 

 with skins as fair as any in the northland, and others 

 that were predominantly negro. Most were of interven- 

 ing shades. All this was paralleled among the men ; and 

 the fusion of the colors was going on steadily. 



Around the village black vultures were gathered. Not 

 long before reaching it we passed some rounded green 

 trees, their tops covered with the showy wood-ibis ; at the 

 same time we saw behind them, farther inland, other trees 

 crowded with the more delicate forms of the shining 

 white egrets. 



The river now widened so that in places it looked 

 like a long lake ; it wound in every direction through the 

 endless marshy plain, whose surface was broken here 

 and there by low mountains. The splendor of the sun- 

 set I never saw surpassed. We were steaming east 

 toward clouds of storm. The river ran, a broad highway 

 of molten gold, into the flaming sky; the far-off moun- 

 tains loomed purple across the marshes; belts of rich 

 green, the river banks stood out on either side against 

 the rose-hues of the rippling water; in front, as we 



