[104] Le Paraguay; son passe, son present, et son avenir; par un Etranger, qui a vecu longtemps dans ce pays, ouvrage publie a Rio-Janeiro, et reproduit en France; par General Oriental Pacheco-y-Obes.
[105] Mr. G. W. Drabble, a gentleman who proceeded some time ago from Manchester on a visit to the River Plate, determined to devote some of his time and attention to ascertaining the capability of the Argentine territory and the Banda Oriental for growing cotton. Lord Clarendon having been written to by the Manchester Commercial Association to ask his assistance for Mr. Drabble in carrying out this intention, replied, in a letter, dated the 1st of March, that he would have particular pleasure in complying with the request, and that his Lordship ‘had recommended Mr. Drabble to the kind offices of Captain Gore (Her Majesty’s Chargé d’Affaires at Buenos Ayres) and Mr. Hunt (the British Acting Consul-General), and had instructed them to afford to Mr. Drabble every facility and assistance in their power in furtherance of his object, which was one in which Her Majesty’s Government take great interest.’ A letter was afterwards received from the Consul-General at Monte Video, 4th of June, stating that he would be very glad indeed to give Mr. Drabble every assistance in his power. The following letter to Mr. J. A. Turner, president of the Manchester Commercial Association, details the result of Mr. Drabble’s investigations:—‘Buenos Ayres, Oct. 1. The unsettled state of politics that prevailed on my arrival here prevented my being able to avail myself of the offers of assistance by Mr. Gore and Mr. Hunt, nor was a journey to the interior provinces then practicable. From Paraguay, fortunately, General Lopez, son of the President of that country, was passing through this city, on a visit to Europe; which enabled me to be presented to him by Sir Charles Hotham, who has rendered me every assistance, and given me most valuable information as to that country. That territory appearing to hold forth more prospect of success in the cultivation of cotton, I have sent up a gentleman possessing the requisite talent, so that he may be enabled to furnish an accurate report as to the facilities that may be there found. Even here, however, I would observe that much more attention is being attached to the country of Paraguay, as a rich field of enterprise; and, as a pioneer to what we hope may be continued efforts, a steamer started from this port yesterday to that destination, conveying a company recently arrived from the United States’ said to be well supported, consisting of several directors, and conveying with them machines for the cultivation and cleaning of cotton, tobacco, sugar, and rice; sawmills, for making available for export the valuable wood that there so abounds, and other machines suitable for the development of its resources. If they are once enabled to establish a footing there, and, especially, if the project of steam navigation up our interior rivers is accomplished, great results may attend these primary efforts. Some of the interior provinces of this confederation have been long said to be most suitable for the cultivation of cotton, and a sample, pronounced to be of very fine quality, from one of them (Tucuman), was last year exhibited in Manchester. I have forwarded, per steamer, another example from the neighbouring province of Catamarca, the lands of which are reported as being capable of producing a much superior article to any other of these States. I consider, however, that a great difficulty will exist in the development of this cultivation, in any of these interior provinces, from the long land carriage required to bring it to an exterior market. The cost of the best qualities there, as plucked, say with seed, is 7rs. to 8rs. per arroba; if cleaned up there, as it must be to give the least hope of successful competition, it is calculated that the yield would give about 25 per cent. of gross, thus placing the cost of an arroba, or 25 lbs., at an average of 30rs.; expenses of cleaning would be 2rs.; carriage to Buenos Ayres, per arroba, 6rs.; total, 38rs.; which, taken at to-day’s rate of exchange, would net per lb. 8⅕d. In Catamarca the cotton tree has been cultivated regularly, but, attention never having been paid to it as an article of export, the production has never increased. It is a perennial plant, sown in spring, and yielding the same year. It grows about four feet to five feet high. In the winter it is cut down, but the following spring it shoots up for another year’s yield. No great care is paid to it till the time of gathering the pod, when it is regularly plucked. The Paraguay and Corrientes plants are of the same class. The quality of the Corrientes cotton has so far been much inferior. It is, however, in the same latitude, and the soil is represented as being equally fertile, and from its geological position, that province would seem to be the most preferable. The great drawback to the extension of this cultivation will be the want of labour. The population of Catamarca is not more than 40,000; that of Tucuman may be estimated at 50,000. But even so, there are so many other articles of production of great value, and requiring little labour, as tobacco, sugar, &c., that it will be difficult to obtain sufficient hands for the plucking and cleaning, unless expressly imported. The requirements of the native population are few, and their ambition soon satisfied. It is, therefore, almost impossible to get them to labour for more than their actual wants. That these countries, however, present many facilities and advantages for the extension of this cultivation cannot be doubted; nor that capital, properly laid out, would, with care and energy, give every prospect of ample profit. But the commencement of this, as of all other undertakings, requires to be followed up with the greatest energy, and under the personal superintendence of a practical and interested party. Although Mr. Drabble estimates that only 25 per cent. of clean cotton would be obtained from the seed, some gentlemen in Manchester, who have had much acquaintance with the subject, are of opinion that, with such fine growths as the samples already sent home from the district, the net produce of clean cotton would be much more likely to be one-third of the gross weight than one-fourth, and, consequently, the cost at which cotton could be supplied would be proportionately reduced.
[106] The chief provisions are the following:—British subjects are free to navigate the banks of the rivers of Paraguay. British traders may settle and carry on commerce in any of their towns, instead of being restricted to Assumption, as hitherto. Finally, they may marry the daughters of the country—a privilege from which they have until now been debarred. Similar treaties have been made with France, the United States, and Sardinia. This treaty (said an eminent ‘Economical’ authority at the time it was made known in England,) will help to forward the designs of Bolivia to promote the free navigation of the rivers that run from her territory into the Plate. Could that navigation be opened, it would be something like spreading the advantages conferred by the Mississippi on North America over South America. The Plate is formed by the junction of the Parana and the Uruguay. From the Plate to Assumption, the Parana, with its branch the Paraguay, is navigable for 800 miles in the dry season by vessels drawing six feet of water, and in the rainy season by vessels drawing twice as much. Beyond that 800 miles, it is navigable as a canal for 600 miles, almost to its sources in the mountains of Brazil, not far from one of the streams navigable into the heart of Bolivia upwards of 1,000 miles from the Atlantic. The Uruguay is navigable for 300 miles from its junction with the Parana, and there the navigation is stopped by a ledge of rocks which does not affect the level of the stream. Were this impediment removed—and the governments of Brazil and Buenos Ayres are bound by treaty to remove it—the river would be navigable for 300 miles further. Thus together there is an interior navigation from the Plate of at least 1,600 miles, and probably when the country shall be fully explored for many hundred more miles, opening up for the use of the closely-pressed people of Europe some of the finest countries of the globe. The great empire of the south, extending through more than thirty degrees of latitude, and in its widest part through thirty degrees of longitude, with a population of about 5,000,000, and a portion of them slaves, is increasing in people and wealth much faster than the countries on the Plate. It is extending its trade year by year, and may in the end absorb and incorporate the neighbouring republics; but it is yet far from that consummation. Unless, therefore, some more European life be infused into the countries on the Plate, unless spare hands from England, France, Italy, Spain, and Germany, each of which has already supplied some of the scattered population on the Plate, go thither, and bring those countries more into contact with Europe, they are likely to remain only half tenanted for ages.
[107] When Rosas, in his protest, announced that he was preparing great military and naval armaments, with a view of invading and incorporating her in the Argentine Confederation, Paraguay speedily raised an effective army of more than 30,000 men; and calculating that force at the moderate rate of two per cent. on the entire population, the result is above a million, which, as already stated, is more than double the population of the Argentine provinces and the State of Uruguay united—a fact which explains why it is that Paraguay imports more than all the interior provinces of the Confederation, including the province, though not the port, of Buenos Ayres itself.
The town of Conception has been resuscitated from its decay by the government founding the town of St. Salvador, on the Paraguay, and covering all the fords by a line of small fortified posts. New works and branches of industry have been commenced, and quarries of calcareous stone, an article which Paraguay, before Francia’s time, imported, are now worked. The Encyclopædia Britannica, now being published, puts down the population of Assumption, the capital, at 12,000, which is certainly considerably under the real number. With an activity and zeal which would do honour to governments better furnished with resources and auxiliary means, the consular government undertook to open new roads, by cutting through the forests to an extraordinary extent, in order to facilitate transit and the trade to the exterior. The road which was opened across the mountain called Caro is twelve leagues in length and fifty feet broad. That which traverses Mount Palomares is thirteen leagues long, and of the same breadth as the first; and Mount Caagazu has been cut by a road six leagues long and thirty-six feet wide. There is also now approaching completion a road which is passable for carriages from Villa-Rica to the bank of the Parana. Bridges have been constructed over several water-courses and dangerous ravines, and where the breadth of the rivers has been too great, commodious ferries have been established at the expense of the government. In the district of Rosario, where there are many grazing estates, the proprietors were frequently exposed to excessive droughts, which occasioned the dispersion, mixture, and loss of the herds. The government has had a canal opened from five to six leagues long, and which, serving as a reservoir to many brooks, will retain water even in the most terrible droughts. A similar route has been carried out in the department of San Estanislao. The government has resolved on founding other new towns, and has overcome the obstacles opposed to the development of others already existing, such as Villa Franca, which, situated at the bottom of a plain, suffered much in the rainy season. It opened drains for the stagnant waters, and the soil has been much improved.
There is one arrangement which does the greatest honour to the liberalism and equity of the consular government. We may, properly speaking, say that there are no slaves in Paraguay; the number is not quite certain, but, from the statement of a recent traveller, there would not appear to be more than one thousand in the whole of the territory of the Republic. The consular government, in order to put a stop to slavery in a natural manner, although it be on so small a scale, has declared every child born of slaves to be free, and has prohibited, by a decree, all fresh importations.
[108] The climate, which has so much influence on the prosperity of a country, is salubrious, equable, and agreeable. Although tropical, this region is exempt from the fevers which commit such ravages at Havana and New Orleans, and from the earthquakes and hurricanes of the West Indies and other tropical countries. All epidemics are unknown: in fact, the climate of Paraguay is proverbially salubrious, one proof of which is, that there is an unusual proportionate number of octogenarians, and even centenarians. The British and French war-steamers, Locust and Flambart, were lately there for upwards of two months, during the hottest season, without a single case of serious illness occurring on board. Such, too, was the case when a French steamer was sent up by the British and French Ministers in 1846. Though the heat is great, it is infinitely more bearable than in most parts of the Brazils; while all experience goes to show that Europeans become speedily acclimated.
[109] Prolific as are so many portions of South America, there is no one area of anything like the same magnitude to be compared for a moment with Paraguay. Here are cultivated, with an easy success to which the wants of the inhabitants are the only limit, cotton, sugar, indigo, cochineal, and the finest tobacco in the world; dyes of great value abound, as also various wild plants of the hemp kind, capable of being converted to the greatest utility; resinous trees, amongst them several producing the Indian-rubber and gutta-percha gums; copaiba, rhubarb, and medicinal plants of equal virtue, its sarsaparilla being superior to all others, and its bark having still as high a repute among pharmaceutical savants as when first introduced thence into Europe by the Jesuits towards the middle of the seventeenth century. Plantations of coffee have lately been commenced, and answer excellently. Fruits and grain embrace nearly all that are indigenous to the temperate and the torrid zone; and the cattle may be multiplied to an indefinite extent if advantage be taken for that purpose of the illimitable pasturage—an important consideration just now, bearing in mind the sources of our supply of hides and tallow, whether from the North of Europe or South America itself. Direct European intercourse, by means of the Malmesbury treaty, not only promises to be productive of the utmost good to Paraguay proper, but, through Paraguay, to the remotest provinces of the Confederation, and beyond, to the spurs of the Andes. The Vermejo, already twice explored, puts Paraguay in communication with the vast provinces of Salta, Jujui, and Tucuman; and if, as there is good reason to believe, the Pilcomayo is navigable considerably above Paraguay, her commerce would go straight to the heart of Bolivia. By the river Paraguay itself ships of 200 tons can ascend to Cuiaba, the capital of the Brazilian province of Matto-Grosso; while the interior of Paraguay is interlaced all over with navigable streams emptying themselves into the great fluvial artery after which the province is named—thus facilitating the transport, in the manner of the Chinese canals, of its produce to the markets of Assumption and the thriving town of Pilar.
[110] The natives of Paraguay are docile to their superiors, vigorous, inured to hardship, and intelligent; at the same time that they are sober, phlegmatic, and not likely to be carried away by enthusiasm. They do not appear to be endowed with that impetuous and exalted valour which seeks to confront danger and death; they would, therefore, not be well adapted for offensive warfare. But they possess, without any doubt, that severe and immovable intrepidity which sees danger and death without being shaken by them, an invaluable quality for defensive war, and which, developed by exercise and arms, may in its turn serve for the attack. The Paraguayan is firm and tenacious in his projects: in whatever he undertakes, if he meets with resistance, he grows obstinate, and dies rather than yield or desist. He is insensible to stimulants, and the seduction of immoderate desires. His family, his valley, his country, the government which he idolizes, are all the world to him. He is, however, notwithstanding his apparent phlegm, most susceptible in whatsoever he considers to be foreign domination, superiority, or influence, and attributes to contempt the most indifferent act which is repugnant to his habits, his customs, or his interests. He does not, however, evince his resentment by words or cries—he is too concentrated for that; but still he allows no opportunity to escape of expressing by monosyllables, gestures, or actions, more energetic than words, what is passing at the bottom of his heart.
[111] The first consul, Don Carlos Antonio Lopez, is a rich landed proprietor. He received in his youth, at the College of Assumption, such education as during the first years of this century could be met with in the American colleges. When his studies were concluded, he gave lessons in theology at the same college, and was installed in a chair of, what at that time was termed, philosophy. He afterwards devoted himself particularly to the study of jurisprudence, and to the profession of an advocate, and exercised it, according to general report, with zeal, impartiality, and disinterestedness, which acquired him credit, friends, and a select number of clients. When it became dangerous, under the tyranny of the Dictator, to exercise a profession so independent as that of advocate, M. Lopez retired to his estate, 40 leagues from Assumption, and gave himself up entirely to agriculture, and to the perusal of the few books which he had been able to procure. He very rarely went to the capital, and then only for a few days. His retired life, the description of seclusion to which he had condemned himself, providentially saved him from the distrust and terrors of the Dictator, and from imprisonment or death, which were their usual consequences. M. Lopez has never quitted his country, and previously he had not taken the smallest share in public affairs. He was unable to make acquaintance with the excellent works published on numerous branches of public administration and political economy, or to obtain the least intelligence of the events which had occurred in Europe and America during the preceding twenty years, for the Dictator persecuted, with more rigour than the Inquisition itself, men of learning and their books, and neither one nor the other had been able to penetrate Paraguay. Nevertheless, the acts and writings of M. Lopez have shown that he was no stranger to sound doctrines of administration, and that he had meditated in his retreat on the situation of his country, its necessities, the evils it suffered, and their causes, as well as on the remedies which it would be possible to apply to them. Such qualities would naturally acquire for him an ascendancy and preponderance in the management of affairs; and, thus acquired, he has exercised them discreetly and vigorously.