Plazoleta del Puerto, Asuncion
One of the landmarks is the brick domed basilica on the Calle Palmas called the Oratory of Lopez. The tyrant had it built for the receptacle of the image of the Virgin of the Assumption (Asuncion). The Five Years' War came on, and the oratory was never completed. It stands to-day without a coat of stucco, with the carpenters' scantling around its dome in the same condition now as when work suddenly ceased in 1865. It is owned by the government which is too poor to complete it; its floor is used for the storage of municipal timber, brick, plaster, and so forth, in charge of an ancient pensioner. Bats roost beneath its dome, and the amberé lizards crawl between the cracks of the bricks. The oratory is surrounded by a wall over which projects a papaya tree whose luscious golden fruit, shaped like a woman's teat, hangs in pendulent clusters from its crown. This fruit is known in Paraguay as mamon which in the Guarani language means tit.
Calle Palmas, Asuncion
The dome in the background is that of the Oratory of Lopez
The Asuncenos are early risers. The stores open at 6 A.M., and an hour later is when the greatest crowds are to be found on the streets. The stores close again at 11 A.M., and remain so till 2 P.M. They close for the day at 7 P.M., and remain shut all day Sunday as well as on the numerous holidays. During the three midday hours there is hardly a person to be seen on the streets. Asuncion is never activity, excepting during periods of revolution and at the annual yearly carnival; on Sundays the liveliness of the streets can be compared with that of the interior of a cemetery receiving vault. It is a trifle better than Valparaiso, Chile, or Detroit, Michigan, on those days because at least the cafés are open. The amusements of the city are paltry, the main one being to sit evenings in one's shirt-sleeves on a chair placed on the sidewalk in front of one's residence and by the illumination of the electric lights watch the great cucurús (large, disgusting looking native toads) hop along the sidewalk in search of bugs. The other amusements are two moving picture shows, one at Belvedere and the other at the Café Bolsa.