Nothing could be rougher than the accommodation Howard, the young Australian, and I found at the hotel. We were shown into a very dirty brick-paved room containing eight beds. We washed unabashed at the fountain in the patio, as there were no other facilities for ablutions at all, and the bare-footed, shirtless waiter addressed us each by our Christian names tout court, at once, omitting the customary "Don." The Spanish forms of Christian names are more melodious than ours, and Howard failed to recognize his homely name of "Dick" in "Ricardo."
As South American men become moustached and bearded very early in life, I think that our clean-shaved faces, to which they were not accustomed, led the people to imagine us both much younger than we really were, for I was then twenty-seven, and the long-legged Dick was twenty-one. Never have I known anyone laugh so much as that light-hearted Australian boy. He was such a happy, merry, careless creature, brimful of sheer joy at being alive, and if he had never cultivated his brains much, he atoned for it by being able to do anything he liked with his hands and feet. He could mend and repair anything, from a gun to a fence; he could cook, and use a needle and thread as skilfully as he could a stock-whip. I took a great liking to this lean, sun-browned, pleasant-faced lad with the merry laugh and the perfectly natural manner; we got on together as though we had known each other all our lives, in fact we were addressing one another by our Christian names on the third day of our acquaintance.
Dick was a most ardent cricketer, and his baggage seemed to consist principally of a large and varied assortment of blazers of various Australian athletic clubs. He insisted on wearing one of these, a quiet little affair of mauve, blue, and pink stripes, and our first stroll through Asuncion became a sort of triumphal progress. The inhabitants flocked out of their houses, loud in their admiration of the "Gringo's" (all foreigners are "Gringos" in South America) tasteful raiment. So much so that I began to grow jealous, and returning to the hotel, I borrowed another of Howard's blazers (if my memory serves me right, that of the "Wonga-Wonga Wallabies"), an artistic little garment of magenta, orange, and green stripes. We then sauntered about Asuncion, arm-in-arm, to the delirious joy of the populace. We soon had half the town at our heels, enthusiastic over these walking rainbows from the mysterious lands outside Paraguay. These people were as inquisitive as children, and plied us with perpetual questions. Since Howard could not speak Spanish, all the burden of conversation fell on me. As I occupied an official position, albeit a modest one, I thought it best to sink my identity, and became temporarily a citizen of the United States, Mr. Dwight P. Curtis, of Hicksville, Pa., and I gave my hearers the most glowing and rose-coloured accounts of the enterprise and nascent industries of this progressive but, I fear, wholly imaginary spot. I can only trust that no Paraguayan left his native land to seek his fortune in Hicksville, Pa., for he might have had to search the State of Pennsylvania for some time before finding it.
I have already recounted, earlier in these reminiscences, how the Paraguayan Minister for Foreign Affairs received me, and that his Excellency on that occasion dispensed not only with shoes and stockings, but with a shirt as well. He was, however, like most people in Spanish-speaking lands, courtesy itself.
Dick Howard having heard that there was some races in a country town six miles away, was, like a true Australian, wild to go to them. Encouraged by our phenomenal success of the previous day, we arrayed ourselves in two new Australian blazers, and rode out to the races, Howard imploring me all the way to use my influence to let him have a mount there.
The races were very peculiar. The course was short, only about three furlongs, and perfectly straight. Only two horses ran at once, so the races were virtually a succession of "heats," but the excitement and betting were tremendous. The jockeys were little Indian boys, and their "colours" consisted of red, blue, or green bathing drawers. Otherwise they were stark naked, and, of course, bare-legged. The jockey's principal preoccupation seemed to be either to kick the opposing jockey in the face, or to crack him over the head with the heavy butts of their raw-hide whips. Howard still wanted to ride. I pointed out to him the impossibility of exhibiting to the public his six feet of lean young Australian in nothing but a pair of green bathing drawers. He answered that if he could only get a mount he would be quite willing to dispense with the drawers even. Howard also had a few remarks to offer about the Melbourne Cup, and Flemington Racecourse, and was not wholly complimentary to this Paraguayan country meeting. The ladies present were nearly all bare-foot, and clad in the invariable white petticoat and sheet. It was not in the least like the Royal enclosure at Ascot, yet they had far more on, and appeared more becomingly dressed than many of the ladies parading in that sacrosanct spot in this year of grace 1919. Every single woman, and every child, even infants of the tenderest age, had a green Paraguayan cigar in their mouths.
These Paraguayan women were as beautifully built as classical statues; with exquisitely moulded little hands and feet. Their "attaches," as the French term the wrist and ankles, were equally delicately formed. They were "tea with plenty of milk in it" colour, and though their faces were not pretty, they moved with such graceful dignity that the general impression they left was a very pleasing one.
Our blazers aroused rapturous enthusiasm. I am sure that the members of the "St. Kilda Wanderers" would have forgiven me for masquerading in their colours, could they have witnessed the terrific success I achieved in my tasteful, if brilliant, borrowed plumage.
Asuncion pleased me. This quaint little capital, stranded in its backwater in the very heart of the South American Continent, was so remote from all the interests and movements of the modern world. The big three-hundred-year cathedral bore the unmistakable dignified stamp of the old Spanish "Conquistadores." It contained an altar-piece of solid silver reaching from floor to roof. How Lopez must have longed to melt that altar-piece down for his own use! Round the cathedral were some old houses with verandahs supported on palm trunks, beautifully carved in native patterns by Indians under the direction of the Jesuits. The Jesuits had also originally introduced the orange tree into Paraguay, where it had run wild all over the country, producing delicious fruit, which for some reason was often green, instead of being of the familiar golden colour.