A Tour Through South America

by A. S. Forrest

There is little life in the rugged streets of Asuncion at any hour of the day in normal times, but during the early mornings, when a revolution is in progress, a few dogs, cats, and fowls have undisturbed possession of the thoroughfares.

The town is well enough laid out, and follows a regular plan; but the low, one-story buildings which line many of the streets, and the absence of many tall buildings, prevent the city from having an imposing aspect. The roads are bad, and the high pavements, which serve in most cases as balconies to the houses, often compel the pedestrian to use the rough roadways, which, however, are not quite so bad as those of Corrientes. In wet weather many of the roads are converted into rivulets, only to be negotiated by stepping from one to the other of the large stones which lie like boulders across the stream. The older houses are all built with “adobes” or sun-dried bricks, having substantial walls of more than a yard in thickness. The roofs are covered with double layers of red tiles of the “roman” pattern, and many of the external walls are panelled and framed in by columns or pilasters in low relief, the whole front being colour-washed in some fanciful shade, according to the owner’s taste. Blues, yellows, purples, greens, and buffs give a kaleidoscopic aspect to the streets, additional variety being lent by the heavy, massive doors and shutters of the entrances and windows, the former opening into vestibules which lead to the pillared and grassy patios beyond.

The kitchens are dark and sooty apartments, full of a heavy atmosphere, and the pungent smell of garlic and cooking fat; but lofty rooms with heavy rafters made from palm-tree trunks are to be found in many of the houses, timber being so plentiful that even the jerry-builders of the country have no temptation to substitute two-by-three joists and rafters. The majority of the houses boast of broad piazzas with heavy pillars and shady upper galleries, which recall the styles of Morocco and Algiers.

The newer buildings in the town, however, display evidence that the modern utilitarian craze for cheapness, with its almost inevitable nastiness, has spread to Paraguay.

They are flimsy and cheaply ornate, with thinner walls and more hastily contrived and executed doors and windows, the woodwork of which is a sad departure from the ideals inculcated by the stern Francia, whose passion for thoroughness in all things called forth the enthusiastic praise of the “philosopher of Chelsea.”

The Dictator of Paraguay permitted no citizen to slur or scamp his work, but demanded the best from every man, exacting a high standard of workmanship, and enforcing the same by the erection of that extraordinary institution known as the “workman’s gallows,” which promptly ended the career of negligent and deceitful craftsmen. All the windows, too, of the older houses in this strange city have heavier iron bars than those commonly found in Spanish dwellings, and this also may be the result of the stern Dictator’s decrees.

For it was under the auspices of the “Grand Old Man” of Paraguay that most of the city was built. When he took up the reins of government he found Asuncion in disorder, its streets irregular, and its houses built without system or plan. Tropical vegetation ran riot in its roadways, which were unpaved and unworthy of the name. When the visitor to-day feels inclined to criticise adversely the streets and roads of the city as he finds them, he should pause and reflect upon its state a hundred years ago, and bless, even if reluctantly, the name of Francia, who remodelled and paved the town, straightened the crooked ways, and brought about some measure of order.

It has been alleged by the Doctor’s traducers that his real purpose in bringing about so many drastic changes was his own convenience and safety, fearing that the dense thickets that grew throughout and around the city might harbour and conceal designing assassins.

Of the few buildings of any great importance, the cathedral, although large, is dwarfed by a high colonnade which rises up to the roof of the deserted and ill-kept edifice, whose walls are discoloured and faded by the action of rain and sun.

One of the few outstanding features of the place is the huge dome which towers above all the other buildings, but the visitor is disappointed when, on closer inspection, he discovers that it is neither old nor new, but merely a monument to the childish and unstable zeal of the tyrant Lopez, who, with a feverish energy, undertook many ambitious building schemes, which, through lack of means or waning enthusiasm, he never completed.