Having secured both nomination and election, Liberado M. Rogas was installed for the term which ends in November, 1914, but Gondra and his followers, men of means and position, obtained possession of boats, guns, and men, and having the sympathy of the best citizens, succeeded in November, 1911, in obtaining the upper hand. The country was in the thick of this revolt during my visit, and I saw enough in the short time I was there to convince me that the lot of the average Paraguayan is far from enviable, despite his romantic and Arcadian surroundings, where the sun is always shining and the women have no vote but do all the hard work. On all hands one heard complaints of the dislocation of trade, whilst timid folk who were unable to escape out of the country did their best to hide themselves.
Foreigners in the city had to display the greatest caution in their relations with the natives. One Englishman, whose son was lying dangerously ill with typhoid fever, being seen in conversation with the doctor who was attending the case, was immediately warned by the authorities not to mix himself up with politics.
Soldiers were posted at the corners of the deserted streets ever ready to pounce upon likely recruits, and so desperate was the need of the Government for men that even foreigners were in danger of being pressed into the service. I met a youth of Italian extraction a few minutes after he had escaped from the clutches of the Army Board. He had been stopped in the street by a couple of soldiers and carried off to the barracks, where he found many acquaintances who had been similarly captured. He was closely questioned, in Guarani, regarding himself, and had the presence of mind to feign complete ignorance of that language and to employ the Spanish in demanding the reason of his detention. A proficiency in Guarani would have been taken as practical proof that the speaker was a native. Fortunately this young Italian was provided with military papers which proved his nationality, and after an irksome and searching inquiry he was released.
I continually met in the streets detachments of civilians under close guard on their way to the barracks, and found that shops were closed, cafés deserted, whilst the population, nervous and apprehensive, kept themselves in the background. The wharves bristled with armed men, whose wretched physique and poor clothing gave them anything but a military appearance, and they seemed more anxious to keep out of harm’s way than to run any risk of encounter with an enemy.
When the steamers were leaving the port a number of officials went on board and carefully scrutinised the passengers, who had all to be provided with passports to enable them to leave the country, and it was not until the city was left far behind and the town of Villeta safely passed that the apprehensions of many passengers and fugitives were dispelled.
This magnificent and rich country is still a wilderness awaiting development, for its progress during the last fifty years has been so slow that much remains to be done to bring it into line with the general advance made by the surrounding republics.
CHAPTER XXII
A Glance at Brazilian History
IF geographical extent, length of seaboard, variety of resources, number of cities, constitute the importance of a country, then Brazil may fairly claim to be the most important State in South America.
It is 2600 miles from north to south, and 2500 miles from east to west, and has a seaboard extending for 3700 miles. In square mileage it is exceeded only by the British Empire, Russia, China, and the United States. It occupies 33 per cent of the whole continent of South America, for it contains within its borders 3,291,416 square miles. It is the proud boast of Brazilian authors that their country is in one sense the most remarkable on the globe, because it is peopled by a single nation, and not by a heterogeneous medley of races, a contention which is perhaps not strictly justified, for even in Brazil many different nationalities go to swell its population, which is quite small for the tremendous area it occupies. To-day it does not contain more than eighteen or nineteen millions of inhabitants. Each year sees an increasing emigration to it, and the nationalities of the new-comers are over thirty in number. Some become naturalised, many refrain from bothering about a formality which bestows few advantages and many obligations. The Brazilian people is made up of three distinct races, Europeans mostly of Latin origin, indigenous Indians and negroes imported from Africa. These different races have mixed and bred, and to some extent have intermarried, and the numerous half-breeds which now inhabit the country are the result. Half whites and half Indians are called “Caboclos,” white and Indian “Mameluco,” white and negro “Mulattos,” the descendants of Mulatto parents “Cascos.” The full-blooded negro is termed “Creolo,” the cross between them and the Indians
