54 UP THE PARAGUAY [chap, ii 



first quarter of the last century ; and in the not distant 

 future it will witness a burst of growth and prosperity 

 much like that which the Mississippi saw when the old 

 men of to-day were very young. ^ 



In the early forenoon we stopped at a little Paraguayan 

 hamlet, nestling in the green growth under a group of 

 low hiUs by the river-brink. On one of these hUls stood 

 a picturesque old stone fort, known as Fort Bourbon in 

 the Spanish, the colonial, days. Now the Paraguayan 

 flag floats over it, and it is garrisoned by a handful of 

 Paraguayan soldiers. Here Father Zahm baptized two 

 children, the youngest of a large family of fair-skinned, 

 Ught-haired smaU people, whose father was a Paraguayan 

 and the mother an " Oriental," or Uruguayan. No priest 

 had visited the vUlage for three years, and the children 

 were respectively one and two years of age. The 

 sponsors included the local commandante and a married 

 couple from Austria. In answer to what was supposed 

 to be the perfunctory question whether they were 

 CathoKcs, the parents returned the unexpected answer 

 that they were not. Further questioning ehcited the 

 fact that the father called himself a " free-thinking 

 CathoUc," and the mother said she was a " Protestant 

 Catholic," her mother having been a Protestant, the 

 daughter of an immigrant from Normandy. However, 

 it appeared that the older children had been baptized by 

 the Bishop of Asuncion, so Father Zahm, at the earnest 

 request of the parents, proceeded with the ceremony. 

 They were good people ; and, although they wished 

 hberty to think exactly as they individually pleased, they 

 also wished to be connected and to have their children 

 connected with some Church, by preference the Church 

 of the majority of their people. A very short experience 

 of communities where there is no Church ought to con- 



