a melancholy aspect to the city, and its future is further shadowed by the hopelessness of the people, who seem to have no heart to repair the damage done to the houses.

THE HILL OF LAMBARE.

In coming to Asuncion, M. Forgues had taken on himself a commission far more troublesome than that of collecting the money due to the commercial house with which he was connected; and this was to deliver into the hands of the French chargé d'affaires at Buenos Ayres, the comte A. de C——, who happened to be at the time in Asuncion, the despatch-bag of the legation, which had been consigned to his care by the French consul in the former city. Behold, then, our traveler, as, accompanied by the captain of the Republica, he sets foot on the quay, intent on relieving himself of his precious valise, the possession of which is doubly embarrassing because of its very preciousness. He has a hope that he may meet the chargé at the Progreso Club, whither he is going, but whether he is to be met or not, he does not dare to leave behind him the valise, which to him is a veritable Old Man of the Sea. Night has fallen when they leave the steamer. The dark, sandy streets are badly graded, and he stumbles repeatedly on the uneven brick pavements which line them, at every step anathematizing the valise, which is far from being a light burden. The club-house was the residence of Lopez before the allied armies occupied the city. From its seclusion he went forth to meet his death at Cerro Cora. In the parlor is a large mirror with gilded mouldings, and the dining-room walls are hung with painted paper representing in vivid colors, and with much gilding and silvering, scenes from French history, in which musqueteers, courtiers and the cardinal de Richelieu figure. A large and notable company is present, among them many high civil functionaries, but the chargé d'affaires is not there. In the billiard-room the honorable minister of finance plays a game with the honorable minister of the interior. They are both of unpretending manners, polite and affable, and during the pauses of the game they call for and drink their beer in true democratic fashion. M. Forgues learns that his chargé lives two leagues out of town, and, hugging his exasperating valise—which, we may here remark, was delivered safely to the chargé next day—he returns in company with the captain to the steamer, where, seated on the deck, he listens with horror to the stories told by a citizen of divers murders committed in the town and vicinity, one of the victims, a French pioneer, having been slain lately at his quinta, or small farm, just on the other side of the river, by the fierce Indians of Gran Chaco, whose camp-fires, about six miles distant, even while they are conversing, light up one-fourth of the horizon in that direction.

M. Forgues, introduced to General Vedia, who commands the Argentine forces in Paraguay, is invited by that officer to go with him to Villa Occidental, a town situated a few miles above Asuncion on the river, and capital of the new province of Gran Chaco, claimed by the Argentine Confederation. He accepts. The voyage is made in a small Argentine gunboat, with its guard of thirty Argentine soldiers dressed in gray linen, with green facings to their coats, and armed with Minié rifles. This detachment is on its way to Villa Occidental to relieve the guard at that place, which has been on duty for eight days protecting the infant capital of Gran Chaco against the incursions of the Indians of the province. Around them are grouped a number of Paraguayan women, clad in the costume of the country—a chemise and a white rebozo—which gives them a certain statuesque appearance. The general and M. Forgues are received with military honors at Villa Occidental by the commandant of the place and his garrison of three soldiers. A walk of ten minutes brings them to the spot, a short distance out of the village, where twenty years ago was established a colony of Frenchmen who had been sent out from France by the late President Lopez at the time of the dictatorship of Carlos Antonio Lopez, his father. The elder Lopez, it appears, desired agriculturists from France, and the younger Lopez, who was then in that country, despatched to him two or three hundred bootblacks, organ-grinders, street vagabonds, etc. whom he had collected on the quays of Bordeaux and in the suburbs of Paris. Carlos Antonio was at first grieved to see the class of immigrants that had been forwarded as tillers of the soil, but he became furious when he discovered that his unwelcome colonists had brought with them certain dangerous ideas of liberty which threatened to excite a mutinous spirit among his docile Paraguayans. He therefore assembled them at a spot near Villa Occidental, and placed them under the control of the governor of the province of Gran Chaco, in spite of the protests of the French consul. Here they were treated with the utmost cruelty. They were bastinadoed and otherwise punished for the most trivial offences. Many died under these inflictions. Of the few survivors some endeavored to escape through the forests of Gran Chaco to Bolivia and Peru. Three were caught, brought back and tortured, while the others, of whom no tidings were ever received afterward, probably perished of hunger or were killed by the Indians or jaguars. All that now remains of this ill-starred enterprise is a few half-decayed palm-tree posts symmetrically planted in the ground on the site of the unfortunate colony of New Bordeaux.

Villa Occidental is at present merely a village of eight hundred or one thousand inhabitants. Its greatness, if it is ever to be great, lies in the future. General Vedia, having ample room at his command for a metropolitan experiment, has laid it out in long avenues seventy-five feet wide, with a view to its future magnificence when it shall have become the outlet of the northern regions of the Argentine Confederation and the emporium of the Brazilian province of Matto Grosso.

A STREET IN ASCUNCION.

At Villa Occidental, M. Forgues meets a fellow-countryman, who belongs to the class of adventurers who flourish in the wake of great wars. His name is Auriguau, and he was once a soldier in the Franco-Spanish free corps which fought against Lopez in the campaign of 1870. His head is filled with sublime ideas, and his pocket is empty. He has come to Villa Occidental to propose to General Vedia the formation of a military corps, of which he shall be chief, composed of his old companions-in-arms, to serve against the Indians of Gran Chaco. He explains his plan with much enthusiasm, and then begs our traveler to present him with his gun, his revolver, his money, his hat, and even his boots.

M. Forgues is of course General Vedia's guest for the night. As he is about to dismiss the soldier who has conducted him to his chamber, which is on the ground-floor of the house, an unexpected visitor glides into the room through the open door. This visitor is a snake three feet long. The soldier kills him, turns him on his back, and calmly remarks that he is one of the most dangerous specimens of his kind in the neighborhood. M. Forgues's curiosity is aroused. "Are there many like this in the houses here?" he asks. "Sometimes yes, sometimes no," replies the soldier philosophically, retiring from the presence. M. Forgues goes to sleep to dream of a snake for a