fifty persons destined by him to be shot was found amongst his papers. These facts appear in a report drawn up by Colonel Graham, the Consul of the United States at Buenos Ayres, who proceeded on an official mission to Paraguay in 1845, and collected some interesting information relative to the state of the country and people after Francia's death. With respect to the cruelty and oppression of that extraordinary despot, it would appear that nothing related of him has been exaggerated-a more bloody and unscrupulous tyrant never existed. Colonel Graham says he could fill a volume with the details of his deeds of cruelty; he could not go into any respectable house in Assumption without hearing of some act of his tyranny towards one or more members of the family. It had been supposed that when Francia died, Paraguay would have again joined the confederation of the provinces of the Rio de la Plata, but as yet that is not the case; and it would appear that there is a party there not only ambitious of maintaining their independence of their neighbours, but, what is still more extraordinary, disposed to continue a system of isolation and tyranny little short of that established by Francia. The present governor of the country is one Lopez, who, after a struggle with other parties who had seized the government on Francia's death, was placed by the soldiery at their head in 1841, and three years after was made president of the Republic of Paraguay, as it is called, for ten years, by a Congress, very much in the same manner as Francia was elected to the same office in 1813. It would seem indeed that the Paraguayans have been so habituated to a despotism, that they have no ideas or wishes beyond it. More Indian than More Indian than Spanish in their habits, as well as origin, living in an enervating climate,* where the necessaries of life are produced with the smallest * At Assumption in the summer season the ordinary height of the thermometer is 85; in days of extraordinary heat it is occasionally at 100°. In winter it falls to 450; but the heat of the atmosphere appears much to depend on the wind: when from the north it is hot, and cold when it blows from the south or southeast. A westerly wind is a most rare occurrence, and never lasts a couple of hours: it would seem as if it was stopped by the great wall of the Andes, although 200 leagues distant.—Azara. 268 SIMPLE HABITS OF THE PEOPLE. PART III. possible amount of labour, their wants are very few and easily satisfied, the scanty clothing, if clothing it can be called, which is worn by the lower orders is made of cotton grown and woven by themselves-and even that by all accounts is often more than they can bear in so hot a climate. Colonel Graham says he saw many boys and girls of ten or twelve years old, in the country, entirely naked, with the strange exception that the boys had hats on, in obedience to a decree of Francia, that they might be ready at all times to make due obeisance to their superiors. Their food is of the simplest kind-generally of mandioca, or maize, oranges and other fruits; their only luxuries caña, a spirit distilled from honey, and cigars, without which no Paraguayan can exist. Every kind of agricultural or manufacturing labour is performed in the most primitive manner. Their ploughs are made of wood, unshod with iron; cotton is cleaned and spun by hand, and generally wove by itinerant manufacturers who carry about on horseback a portable loom, which they tie to a tree wherever it may be requisite to set it up for use. The juice of the sugar-cane is pressed out by a wooden mill, like a common cyder-press, and is afterwards boiled till the saccharine matter exudes in earthen pans. Wheatflour is made by moistening the grain, and beating it out with a pestle and mortar. Rice, though of good quality, cannot be cleansed so as to be marketable. Bark for tanning is broken and crushed by grindstones turned by mules. In fact the habits of these people seem in no way to have altered since they were described by Azara fifty years ago. Shut out by their inland position from all * * "La fainéantise et la paresse générales, la cherté des journées, le goût pour la destruction et le gaspillage qui caractérise les habitans du pays, leur peu de besoins, leur défaut d'ambition, l'esprit chevaleresque qui dédaigne et méprise même toute espèce de travail, le manque d'instruction, la nullité des Gouverneurs, et l'incroyable imperfection des instrumens, contribuent à rendre presqu'impossible toute espèce d'amélioration. Au Paraguay et aux Missions on n'a d'autres pioches que de gros os de cheval ou de vache, que l'on ajuste au bout d'un intercourse with the people of other countries, they seem content to remain unknowing and unknown, in that happy state described by the poet "Where ignorance is bliss, And folly to be wise." Notwithstanding some magniloquent proclamations of the Governors, after Francia's death, of their desire to open Paraguay to all the world, the little town of Nembucú, about twenty leagues above Corrientes, is still the only place to which foreigners are permitted to resort without a special licence from the President. Colonel Graham himself, although charged with a special mission to him, was kept there twenty days before he received his permission to go on to Assumption, the capital, distant about 150 miles. The greater part of the road thither runs through a region of swamps, which at times being inundated, renders it necessary to make a circuit of double the distance. About thirty miles from the city, where the road approaches the river Paraguay, near the Angostura, the aspect of the country improves, it becomes more elevated, and is well peopled the inhabitants chiefly engaged in growing mandioca, tobacco, cotton, and sugar-canes, which are all produced there in great abundance, though by the rudest possible processes of culture. The city of Assumption is situated on a low sandy soil, encircled by hills, with a frontage to the river. The population is estimated at from 8000 to 10,000 souls. Half a century ago it amounted to more than 7000, according to Azara.* The port is convenient, and vessels may moor close to the shore. The principal exports of the country, yerba, tobacco, and hides, are chiefly collected there to be reshipped in sloops and schooners and other small craft for Nembucú, the only port, as already stated, with which foreigners are permitted to trade. With respect to the extent of the commercial capabilities of this country, Colonel Graham's opinions may be * Some statistics of the population of Paraguay, recently published with the census previously mentioned in the "Archivo Americano," are interesting, as showing the mortality occasioned there by certain disorders. Dysentery, in the 10 years previous to 1840, was fatal to about 20,000 persons. In 1836-38, 11,000 died of scarlet fever; and in 1844-45, the smallpox carried off nearly 14,000. 270 IMPEDIMENTS TO FOREIGN TRADE. PART III. best given in his own words. "Paraguay," he says, "possesses in many parts a fertile and productive territory; and were its resources developed, and encouragement given to the industry of its inhabitants, it might become a comparatively wealthy part of South America, but it could never support an active trade excepting with the adjoining States. Yerba, the tea of Paraguay, its chief product, is only consumed in South America; its fine woods would not bear the expense of transport to Europe; its sugar, tobacco, cotton, and rice, on account of the distance which they would have to be conveyed from the interior, even were the Paraná open, could never enter into competition with those of Brazil and the United States: its chief market, therefore, would always be (as heretofore) the countries watered by the Paraná and the Salado. 66 The consumption of foreign manufactured goods is now and must always continue to be very inconsiderable; at present the people purchase some articles of foreign hardware and cotton goods of ordinary quality, but the climate is so mild, and the manners of the people so simple, that the consumption is very limited. If the Paraná were declared open to all nations, the United States could not carry on any direct intercourse with Paraguay under its own flag. The vessels adapted for crossing the ocean would not go up the Paraná, and merchandise would have to be re-embarked at the mouth of the river in craft suitable to its navigation, and owned by parties resident in the country. وو Mr. Graham's observations are equally applicable to the shipping of European nations, and they cannot too often be repeated for the information of parties embarking in trade with those remote countries. It may be as well here to remind the reader that the Upper Provinces, Las Provincias Arribeñas, were not originally conquered or settled by the discoverers of the Rio de la Plata, although they formed part of the Viceroyalty of Buenos Ayres previous to their independence. Their Conquest was achieved by Spaniards from Peru, led thither in the first instance by information obtained by some of the followers of Almagro, when he separated from Pizarro to seek his fortunes and to found a new Government in Chile. In 1543 Don Diego Rojas, with 300 followers, left Peru, and, marching south, entered the valley of Catamarca, and proceeded as far as the Sierra de Cordova, whence, turning east, they followed the course of the river Tercero to its junction with the Paraná, where they found a cross inscribed "Cartas al pie "-Letters at foot— upon digging for which they discovered a paper written by Yrala, giving an account of his conquests and settlement at Assumption; and thither they would have proceeded to join him, but for a bloody strife which arose amongst their leaders for the command, after Rojas had been slain in an encounter with the natives, which induced the survivors, already disgusted with the apparent poverty of the lands they had traversed, to insist upon being led back to Peru; nor was it till ten years afterwards that |