At the time of my visit, the whole town of San Salvador was wrought up by an incident that had occurred the day before, and which was the only topic of conversation. The foremen of the saladero pay off the laborers with time checks which they present at the company office for currency. A native forged one of these checks and made such a poor job of it that he was refused payment and threatened with arrest. Angered, he whipped out a big knife, long and thin with a razor edge, with the intentions of annihilating the manager, a North American. The latter grabbed a revolver which scared the Paraguayan, who started to run down the road.
Leaning against a fence post, with his hand on the rail, stood another North American, a mere boy, and a friend of the manager who had arrived from the United States, but three days before on a visit, and not at all connected with the company. The route of the fleeing native led by this young chap, and as he ran by him, he raised his arm and aimed a blow with his knife at the young fellow's hand, which was so powerful that it completely severed it at the wrist. The Paraguayan was caught and lodged in a temporary jail. The next morning, the day of my arrival, he was to be taken in a rowboat to Villa Concepcion to be tried.
The sequel to this event which I heard on my return trip was as follows: His guards not relishing the long rowboat trip to Concepcion, for it would take them several hard days rowing upstream on the return journey, pitched the native overboard in midstream. A few bubbles came up as a saurian closed its jaws upon him, and a red tinge rose to the surface of the river.
From San Salvador northward, occasional round hills are met. The first of these is Itapucumi (sleeping giant), two hours above the settlement. Here the Paraguay River makes a great bend and narrows to one-half mile in width. It is studded with green islands, some of them floating. Puerto Max, where there is another saladeria, is stopped at and farther on, we passed the stockade of an old penal settlement. At dusk we passed another cluster of isolated hills on the east bank; the west bank is now a great dismal swamp. The River Apá is reached which is the boundary line between Paraguay and the Brazilian state of Matto Grosso. We now have Brazil on the right and the Paraguayan Chaco on the left.
Next to Amazonas, Matto Grosso is the largest state in Brazil. Its area is 539,092 square miles and its population is estimated at about 245,000. Only three South American republics (excepting Brazil, of which this state is a part), Argentina, Bolivia, and Peru have a larger area than Matto Grosso. It occupies the very center of South America and its capital, Cuyabá, is more geographically situated in the center of that continent than any other town. The main industry of Matto Grosso is stock raising, there being over 2,500,000 head of cattle within its confines. In this respect it is third among the Brazilian states, Rio Grande do Sul and Minas Geraes outranking it. The name given to the native cattle is cuyabára; they are noted for their viciousness, are red and unlike the Paraguayan breed, are short-horned. A saladero or saladeria (the name for the whole establishment), is in Brazil named a charqueada and there are several of these in the state besides a factory where beef extract is made at São Luiz. The eastern part of the state is a plateau with several high ranges of hills; the western part is a forest; great areas being flooded at certain seasons on account of poor drainage. The word Matto Grosso means "big forest," matto being a covering of trees and bushes. Besides stock raising, rubber plays an important part of the state's industries but this latter is confined to the northwestern region where is located the Madeira-Mamoré Railroad. The only other railroad in the state is a few miles of track outside of Corumbá. It will form part of the Mogyana system when completed, as the present intentions are to connect Corumbá with São Paulo. There was a telegraph line to Cuyabá and to Corumbá, via Goyaz but it is frequently out of commission. It takes three weeks of travel to reach Cuyabá from Rio de Janeiro and this trip is made by the Paraná and Paraguay rivers.
On the third morning we reached an estancia, the settlement of Porto Murtinho with its swampy background. There were numerous wild ducks and plover to be seen. This is the starting place for egret hunters; many of these birds abounding in the back country. Shortly after leaving the place, two hills rise on each side of the river. The one on the right being so much higher that the eminence on the left appears low. These are respectively Pao d'Assucar and Fecho dos Morras. Further up and on another hill is the Brazilian Fort Barranco-branco and beyond it on an eminence on the Paraguayan side is Fort Olimpo. In the afternoon, we stop at Puerto Ledo, Puerto Esperanza, Puerto 14 de Mayo, and Puerto Boggiani, all in Paraguay, and at dark reach a place where the river widens into a lake which is named Bahia Negra. This is formed by the junction of the Paraguay and the Otuquis rivers. The last mentioned stream being commonly called Rio Negro. We here left Paraguayan territory as the Brazilian boundary line is arrived at on the left bank. In the night we passed Fort Coimbra and when I awoke the following morning there were hills on the west bank. The river had narrowed down to one quarter of a mile. In the afternoon we passed Fort Albuquerque and late at night arrived at the wretched but lively city of Corumbá, commercial center of Matto Grosso and the synonym of lawlessness and disorder.
This vile town with its diseased population and a jumping-off place of commercial riffraff, has a population of nearly twenty thousand inhabitants. It is built on the high banks of the west shore of the Paraguay River. The water is six feet deep at the docks when the river is low but the project has long been contemplated of deepening the channel so that vessels drawing twenty feet can anchor there. Nineteen hundred and eighty-six miles from the mouth of the La Plata River, it is the head of navigation for large boats and it has an immense trade, considering the size of the place, on account of its being the sole distributing point for southern Matto Grosso. The tortuous muddy road leads up the bank to the town which is well built with morgue-like edifices. The structures are mostly of one story and many have semicircular round-top windows, which are uncommon in all South American countries excepting Brazil, where they are characteristic. The Hotel Paris, where I stopped, was nothing at all like Paris and the slovenly waiters had a cutthroat appearance.
Corumbá has a widely established reputation for disorder. It is so far from the Federal capital of Brazil that it might be anywhere else in the world as far as the inhabitants having any fear from that quarter of punishments for their misdeeds. Matto Grosso is run very much as if it were an independent country, and on account of the low caliber of the native potentates and politicians, lawlessness is rampant. Nearly every man in the city carries a long thin razor-edged knife and many of the population give testimony of a one-time fight with this kind of weapon by the scars to be seen on their visages. There are some whose nose has been severed and others who are minus an ear. There is but little public safety there from murder or robbery or both on the back streets after nightfall. The natives like to pretend that they are atheists but I have noticed that this same tribe either slink away in a hangdog fashion when they see a priest approaching or else are quick to drop on their knees and make the sign of the cross.
As to industry, besides having a charqueada, Corumbá has a brewery and the Ladario naval arsenal. The town, I think, has a good future on account of its central location. The surrounding country is swampy so there is apt to be malaria but otherwise it is fairly free from epidemics. Most of the inhabitants are syphilitic or are afflicted with other diseases due to lax morals. The climate, though hot, is better than that of Villa Concepcion, and it is doubtful if in the summer months the thermometer rises as high as it does in Asuncion.
The 280-mile trip from Corumbá to Cuyabá is made in anywheres from four days to a week and one half on small steamers of fifty tons. At their very best, they make an average of seventy miles a day of twelve hours as they tie up to the bank at night. These boats, owned locally and also by the Vierci Brothers of Asuncion, carry twenty first-class and fifty third-class passengers. Since the traffic is heavy, it is necessary for the traveler to board the steamer the day before to obtain a convenient place to sling his hammock and then hire some roustabout to watch it for him. Otherwise somebody else would be apt to remove it. If a person waited until the morning of departure before slinging his hammock, he would find all the suitable places occupied. It is impossible to sleep in one of the few cabins which have bunks on account of the heat from the ship's engines combined with that of the atmosphere.