CHAPTER XIX. 
THE CHACO. 
If you look at the map you will see that the 
Paraguay River, flowing from north to south, 
cuts the Republic of the same name in two. All 
through the history of that beautiful country, 
one of the most tragic and poignant of human 
stories, that river has formed an untraversed 
boundary, dividing the territory on the west of 
it from that on the east. These two differ 
absolutely : in geography, in climate, in history 
and in race. The Jesuits, who ruled Paraguay 
under a marvellous theocracy for two hundred 
years, and with all their faults gave it a greater 
measure of human happiness than it has known 
before or since, never got over the Paraguay 
River, and the land to the west of it, the Chaco, 
remained uncivilised and unconverted. So, in 
effect, it remains to-day. Inhabited by savage 
tribes, subject to periodic floods, holding no 
minerals to lure the prospector and little game 
to tempt the hunter, the rush of civilisation has 
passed it by, and large portions of it are even 
