"And all at once they sang 'Our island home
Is far beyond the wave; we will no longer roam'."
They had eaten of the Lotos-fruit abundantly, and in the golden sunshine of Paraguay, and amidst its waving green palms, they only wished—
"In the hollow Lotos-land to live and lie reclined."
I should perhaps add that "cafia," or sugar-cane spirit, is distilled in large quantities in Paraguay, and that one at least of the Lotos-eaters took a marked interest in this national product.
There were some beautiful nooks in the forest, more especially one deep blue rocky pool into which a foaming cascade pattered through a thick encircling fringe of wild orange trees. This little hollow was brimful of loveliness, with the golden balls of the fruit, and the brilliant purple tangles of some unknown creeper reflected in the blue pool. Dick and I spent hours there swimming, and basking puris naturalibus on the rocks, until the whole place was spoilt for me by a rustling in the grass, as a hateful ochre-coloured creature wriggled away in sinuous coils from my bare feet.
I accompanied Jardine once or twice to a little village some five miles away, where he got the few household stores he required. This tiny village was a piece of seventeenth-century Spain, dumped bodily down amid the riotous greenery of Paraguay. Round a tall white church in the florid Jesuit style, a few beautiful Spanish stone houses clustered, each with its tangle of tropical garden. There was not one single modern erection to spoil the place. Here foaming bowls of chocolate were to be had, and delicious mandioca bread. It was a picturesque, restful little spot, so utterly unexpected in the very heart of the South American Continent. I should like to put on the stage that tall white church tower cutting into the intense blue of the sky above, with the vivid green of the feathery palms reaching to its belfry, and the time-worn houses round it peeping out from thickets of scarlet poinsettias and hibiscus flowers. It would make a lovely setting for "Cavalleria Rusticana," for instance.
I never regretted my stay at Patiño Cué. It gave one a glimpse of life brought down to conditions of bed-rock simplicity, and of types of character I had never come across before.
We travelled back to Asuncion on the engine of the train; I seated in front on the cow-catcher, Dick, his coat off and his shirt-sleeves rolled back, on the footplate, officiating as amateur fireman.
This vigorous young Antipodean hurled logs into the fire-box of the venerable "Vesuvius" as fast as though he were pitching in balls when practising his bowling at the nets, with the result that the crazy old engine attained a speed that must have fairly amazed her. When we stopped at stations, "Vesuvius" had developed such a head of steam that she nearly blew her safety-valve off, and steam hissed from twenty places in her leaky joints. One ought never to be astonished at misplaced affections. I have seen old ladies lavish a wealth of tenderness on fat, asthmatical, and wholly repellent pugs, so I ought not to have been surprised at the immense pride the English driver took in his antique engine. I am bound to say that he kept her beautifully cleaned and burnished. His face beamed at her present performance, and he assured me that with a little coaxing he could knock sixty miles an hour out of "Vesuvius." I fear that this statement "werged on the poetical," as Mr. Weller senior remarked on another occasion. I should much like to have known this man's history, and to have learnt how he had drifted into driving an engine of this futile, forlorn little Paraguayan railway. I suspect, from certain expressions he used, that he was a deserter from the Royal Navy, probably an ex-naval stoker. As Dick had ridden ten miles that morning to say good-bye to a lady, to whom he imagined himself devotedly attached, he was still very smart in white polo-breeches, brown butcher-boots and spurs, an unusual garb for a railway fireman. For the first time in the memory of the oldest living inhabitant, the train reached Asuncion an hour before her time.
The river steamers' cargo in their downstream trip consisted of cigars, "Yerba mate," and oranges. These last were shipped in bulk, and I should like a clever artist to have drawn our steamer, with tons and tons of fruit, golden, lemon-yellow, and green, piled on her decks. It made a glowing bit of colour. The oranges were the only things in that steamer that smelt pleasantly.