Through Five Republics on Horseback Part 10

As the climate is hot, a favorite occupation for men and women is to sit half-submerged in the river, smoking vigorously "The Paraguayans are an amphibious race, neither wholly seamen nor wholly landsmen, but partaking of both." All sleep in cotton hammocks,--beds are almost unknown. The hammocks are slung on the verandah of the house in the hotter season and all sleep outside, taking off their garments with real _sang froid_. In the cooler season the visitor is invited to hang his hammock along with the rest inside the house, and in the early morning naked little children bring mate to each one. If the family is wealthy this will be served in a heavy silver cup and _bombilla_, or sucking tube, of the same metal. After this drink and a bite of _chipa_, a strangely shaped, thin-necked bottle, made of sun-baked clay, is brought, and from it water is poured on the hands. The towels are spotlessly white and of the finest texture. They are hand-made, and are so delicately woven and embroidered that I found it difficult to accustom myself to use them. The beautifully fine lace called _nanduti_ (literally spider's web) is also here made by the Indian women, who have long been civilized. Some of the handkerchiefs they make are worth $50 each in the fashionable cities of America and Europe. A month's work may easily be expended on such a dainty fabric.

The women seem exceptionally fond of pets. Monkeys and birds are common in a house, and the housewife will show you her parrot and say, "In this bird dwells the spirit of my departed mother." An enemy, somehow, has always turned into an alligator--a reptile much loathed by them.

In even the poorest houses there is a shrine and a "Saint." These deities can answer all prayers if they choose to. Sometimes, however, they are not "in the humor," and at one house the saint had refused, so he was laid flat on the floor, face downwards. The woman swore that until he answered her pet.i.tion she would not lift him up again. He laid thus all night; whether longer or not I do not know.

Having heard much concerning the _moralite_ of the people, I asked the maid at a respectable private house where I was staying: "Have you a father?" "No, sir," she answered, "we Paraguayans are not accustomed to have a father." Children of five or six, when asked about that parent, will often answer, "Father died in the war." The war ended thirty-nine years ago, but they have been taught to say this by the mother.

As in Argentina the first word the stranger learns is _manana_ (to-morrow), so here the first is _dy-qui_ (I don't know). Whatever question you ask the Guarani, he will almost invariably answer, "_Dy-qui_." Ask him his age, he answers "_Dy-qui_" To your question: "Are you twenty or one hundred and twenty?" he will reply "_Dy-qui_."

Through the long rule of the Jesuits the natives stopped thinking; they had it all done for them. "At the same time that they enslaved them, they tortured them into the profession of the religion they had imported; and as they had seen that in the old land the love of this world and the deceitfulness of riches were ever in the way of conversion to the true faith, they piously relieved the Indians of these snares of the soul, even going so far in the discharge of this painful duty as to relieve them of life at the same time, if necessary to get their possessions into their own hands," [Footnote: Robertson's "Letters on Paraguay."]

"The stories of their hardness, and perfidy, and immorality beggar description. The children of the priests have become so numerous that the shame is no longer considered." [Footnote: Service.]

As the Mahometans have their Mecca, so the Paraguayans have Caacupe; and the image of the Virgin in that village is the great wonder-worker.

Prayers are directed to her that she will raise the sick, etc., and promises are made her if she will do this. One morning I had business with a storekeeper, and went to his office. "Is the carai in?" I asked.

"No," I was answered, "he has gone to Caacupe to pay a promise." That promise was to burn so many candles before the Virgin, and further adorn her bejewelled robes. She had, as he believed, healed him of a sickness.

The village of Caacupe is about forty miles from Asuncion. "The Bishop of Paraguay formally inaugurated the worship of the Virgin of Caacupe, sending forth an episcopal letter accrediting the practice, and promising indulgences to the pilgrims who should visit the shrine. Thus the worship became legal and orthodox. Mult.i.tudes of people visit her, carrying offerings of valuable jewels. There are several _well-authenticated_ cases of persons, whose offerings were of inferior quality, being overtaken with some terrible calamity." [Footnote: Washburn's "History of Paraguay."]

Funds must be secured somehow, for the present Bishop's sons, to whom I was introduced as among the aristocrats of the capital, certainly need a large income from the lavish manner I noticed them "treat" all and sundry in the hotel. "It is admitted by all, that in South America the church is decadent and corrupt. The immorality of the priests is taken for granted. Priests' sons and daughters, of course not born in wedlock, abound everywhere, and no stigma attaches to them or to their fathers and mothers." [Footnote: "The Continent of Opportunity." Dr.

Clark.] Hon. S. H. Blake, in the _Neglected Continent_, writes: "I was especially struck by the statement of a Roman Catholic--a Consular agent with a large amount of information as to the land and its inhabitants. He stopped me in speaking of the priests by saying, 'I know all that. You cannot exaggerate their immorality. Everybody knows it--but the Latin race is a degenerate race. Nothing can be done with it. The Roman Church has had four centuries of trial and has made a failure of it.'"

When a person is dying, the Pai is hurriedly sent for. To this call he will readily respond. A procession will be formed, and, preceded by a boy ringing a bell, the _Host_, or, to use an everyday expression, _G.o.d_, will be carried from the church down the street to the sick one.

All pa.s.sers-by must kneel as this goes along, and the police will arrest you if you do not at least take off your hat. "Liberty of conscience is a most diabolical thing, to be stamped out at any cost,"

is the maxim of Rome, and the Guarani has learned his lesson well. "In Inquisition Square men were burned for daring to think, therefore men stopped thinking when death was the penalty."

Wakes for the dead are always held, and in the case of a child the little one lies in state adorned with gilded wings and tinselled finery. All in the neighborhood are invited to the dance which takes place that evening around the corpse. At a funeral the Pai walks first, followed by a crowd of men, women and children bearing candles, some of which are four and five feet long. The dead are carried through the streets in a very shallow coffin, and the head is much elevated. An old woman generally walks by the side, bearing the coffin lid on her head.

The dead are always buried respectfully, for an old law reads: "No person shall ride in the dead cart except the corpse that is carried, and, therefore, n.o.body shall get up and ride behind. It is against Christian piety to bury people with irreverent actions, or drag them in hides, or throw them into the grave without consideration, or in a position contrary to the practice of the Church."

All Saints Day is a special time for releasing departed ones out of purgatory. Hundreds of people visit the cemeteries then, and pay the waiting priests so much a prayer, If that "liberator of souls" sings the prayer the price is doubled, but it is considered doubly efficacious.

A good feature of Romanism in Paraguay is that the people have been taught something of Christ, but there seems to be an utter want of reverence toward His person, for one may see a red flag on the public streets announcing that there are the "Auction Rooms of the child G.o.d."

In his "Letters on Paraguay," Robertson relates the following graphic account of the celebration of His death: "I found great preparations making at the cathedral for the sermon of 'the agony on the cross.' A wooden figure of our Saviour crucified was affixed against the wall, opposite the pulpit; a large bier was placed in the centre of the cathedral, and the great altar at the eastern extremity was hung with black; while around were disposed lighted candles and other insignia of a great funeral. When the sermon commenced, the cathedral was crowded to suffocation, a great proportion of the audience being females. The discourse was interrupted alternately by the low moans and sobbings of the congregation. These became more audible as the preacher warmed with his discourse, which was partly addressed to his auditory and partly to the figure before him; and when at length he exclaimed, 'Behold!

Behold! He gives up the ghost!' the head of the figure was slowly depressed by a spring towards the breast, and one simultaneous shriek--loud, piercing, almost appalling--was uttered by the whole congregation. The women now all struggled for a superiority in giving unbounded vent to apparently the most distracting grief. Some raved like maniacs, others beat their b.r.e.a.s.t.s and tore their hair.

Exclamations, cries, sobs and shrieks mingled, and united in forming one mighty tide of clamor, uproar, noise and confusion. In the midst of the raging tempest could be heard, ever and anon, the stentorian voice of the preacher, reproaching in terms of indignation and wrath the apathy of his hearers! 'Can you, oh, insensate crowd!' he would cry, 'Can you sit in silence?'--but here his voice was drowned in an overwhelming cry of loudest woe, from every part of the church; and for five minutes all further effort to make himself heard was unavailing.

This singular scene continued for nearly half an hour; then, by degrees, the vehement grief of the congregation abated, and when I left the cathedral it had subsided once more into low sobs and silent tears.

"I now took my way, with many others, to the Church of San Francisco, where, in an open s.p.a.ce in front of the church, I found that the duty of the day had advanced to the funeral service, which was about being celebrated. There a scaffolding was erected, and the crucifixion exactly represented by wooden figures, not only of our Lord, but of the two thieves. A pulpit was erected in front of the scaffold; and the whole square was covered by the devout inhabitants of the city. The same kind of scene was being enacted here as at the cathedral, with the difference, however, of the circ.u.mstantial funeral in place of the death. The orator's discourse when I arrived was only here and there interrupted by a suppressed moan, or a struggling sigh, to be heard in the crowd. But when he commenced giving directions for the taking down of the body from the cross, the impatience of grief began to manifest itself on all sides, 'Mount up,' he cried, 'ye holy ministers, mount up, and prepare for the sad duty which ye have to perform!' Here six or eight persons, covered from head to foot with ample black cloaks, ascended the scaffold. Now the groans of the people became more audible; and when at length directions were given to strike out the first nail, the cathedral scene of confusion, which I have just described, began, and all the rest of the preacher's oratory was dumb show. The body was at length deposited in the coffin, and the groaning and shrieking of the a.s.sembled mult.i.tude ceased. A solemn funeral ceremony took place: every respectable person received a great wax taper to carry in the procession: the coffin after being carried all round was deposited in the church: the people dispersed; and the great day of Pa.s.sion Week was brought to a close."

CHAPTER IX.

EXPEDITION TO THE SUN-WORSHIPPERS. [Footnote: An account of this expedition was requested by and sent to the Royal Geographical Society of London, Eng.]

I took pa.s.sage on the "Urano," a steamer of 1,500 tons, for Concepcion, 200 miles north of Asuncion.

On the second day of our journey the people on board celebrated a church feast, and the pilot, in his anxiety to do it well, got helplessly drunk. The result was that during that night I was thrown out of the top berth I occupied by a terrific thud. The steamer had run on the sandbank of an uninhabited island, and there she stuck fast--immovable. We were landed on the sh.o.r.e, and there had further time for reflection on the mutability of things. In the white sand there were distinct footprints of a large jaguar and cub, probably come to prey on the lazy alligators that were lying on the beach; and I caught sight of a large spotted serpent, which glided into the low jungle where the tiger also doubtless was in hiding.

After three days' detention here, a Brazilian packet took us off. On stepping aboard, I saw what I thought to be two black pigs lying on the deck. I a.s.sure the reader that it was some seconds before I discovered that one was not a pig, but a man!

At sunset it is the custom on these river boats for all to have a bath.

The females go to one side of the ship, and the males to the other; buckets are lowered, and in turn they throw water over each other.

After supper, in the stillness of the evening, dancing is the order, and bare feet keep time to the tw.a.n.g of the guitar.

We occasionally caught sight of savages on the west bank of the river, and the captain informed me that he had once brought up a bag of beans to give them. The beans had been _poisoned_, in order that the miserable creatures might be _swept off the earth!_

We landed at Concepcion, and I walked ash.o.r.e. I found the only British subject living there was a university graduate, but--a prodigal son Owing to his habit of constant drinking, the authorities of the town compelled him to work. As I pa.s.sed up the street I saw him mending a road of the "far country" There I procured five horses, a stock of beads, knives, etc, for barter, and made ready for my land journey into the far interior. The storekeeper, hearing of my plans, strongly urged me not to attempt the journey, and soon all the village talked. Vague rumors of the unknown savages of the interior had been heard, and it was said the expedition could only end in disaster, especially as I was not even going to get the blessing of the Pai before starting. I was fortunate, however, in securing the companionship of an excellent man who bore the suggestive name of "Old Stabbed Arm"; and Dona Dolores (Mrs. Sorrows), true to her name, whom I engaged to make me about twenty pounds of chipa, said she would intercede with her saint for me.

Loading the pack-horse with chipa, beads, looking-gla.s.ses, knives, etc., Old Stabbed Arm and I mounted our horses, and, each taking a spare one by the halter, drove the pack-saddle mare in front, leaving the tenderhearted Mrs. Sorrows weeping behind. The roads are simply paths through deep red sand, into which the horses sank up to their knees; and they are so uneven that one side is frequently two feet higher than the other, so we could travel only very slowly. From time to time we had to push our way into the dense forest on either side, in order to give s.p.a.ce for a string of bullock carts to go past. These vehicles are eighteen or twenty feet long, but have only two wheels.

They are drawn by ten or twelve oxen, which are urged on by goads fastened to a bamboo, twenty feet long, suspended from the roof of the cart, which is thatched with reeds. The goads are artistically trimmed with feathers of parrots and macaws, or with bright ribbons. These are of all colors, but those around the sharp nail at the end are further painted with red blood every time the goad is used.

The carts, rolling and straining like ships in foul weather, can be heard a mile off, owing to the humming screech of the wheels, which are never greased, but on the contrary have powdered charcoal put in them to _increase_ the noise. Without this music (?) the bullocks do not work so well. How the poor animals could manage to draw the load was often a mystery to me, Sections of the road were partly destroyed by landslides and heavy rains, but down the slippery banks of rivers, through the beds of torrents or up the steep inclines they somehow managed to haul the unwieldy vehicle. Strings of loaded donkeys or mules, with jingling bells, also crawled past, and I noticed with a smile that even the animals in this idolatrous land cannot get on without the Virgin, for they have tiny statuettes of her standing between their ears to keep them from danger. Near the town the rivers and streams are bridged over with tree trunks placed longitudinally, and the crevices are filled in with boughs and sods. Some of them are so unsafe and have such gaping holes that I frequently dismounted and led my horse over.

The tropical scenery was superb. Thousands of orange trees growing by the roadside, filled with luscious fruit on the lower branches, and on the top with the incomparable orange blossoms, afforded delight to the eye, and notwithstanding the heat, kept us cool, for as we rode we could pluck and eat. Tree ferns twenty and thirty feet high waved their feathery fronds in the gentle breeze, and wild pineapples growing at our feet loaded the air with fragrance.

There was the graceful pepper tree, luxuriant hanging lichens, or bamboos forty feet high, which riveted the attention and made one think what a beautiful world G.o.d has made. Many of the shrubs and plants afford dyes of the richest hues, Azara found four hundred new species of the feathered tribe in the gorgeous woods and coppices of Paraguay, and all, with the melancholy _caw_, _caw_ of the toucans overhead, spoke of a tropical land. Parrots chattered in the trees, and sometimes a serpent glided across the red sand road. Unfortunately, flies were so numerous and so tormenting that, even with the help of a green branch, we could not keep off the swarms, and around the horses' eyes were dozens of them. Several menacing hornets also troubled us. They are there so fierce that they can easily sting a man or a horse to death!

As night fell we came to an open glade, and there beside a clear, gurgling brook staked out our horses and camped for the night. Building a large fire of brushwood, we ate our supper, and then lay down on our saddlecloths, the firmament of G.o.d with its galaxy of stars as our covering overhead.

By next evening we reached the village of Pegwaomi. On the way we had pa.s.sed a house here and there, and had seen children ten or twelve years of age sucking sticks of sugar-cane, but content with no other clothing than their rosary, or an image of the Virgin round their necks, like those the mules wear. Pegwaomi, I saw, was quite a village, its pretty houses nestling among orange and lime trees, with luscious bananas in the background. There was no Pai in Pegwaomi, so I was able to hold a service in an open shed, with a roof but no walls. The chief man of the village gave me permission to use this novel building, and twenty-three people came to hear the stranger speak. After the service a poor woman was very desirous of confessing her sins to me, and she thought I was a strange preacher when I told her of One in heaven to whom she should confess.

"Paraguay, from its first settlement, never departed from 'the age of faith' Neither doubt nor free-thinking in regard to spiritual affairs ever perplexed the people, but in all religious matters they accepted the words of the fathers as the unquestionable truth. Unfortunately, the priests were, with scarcely an exception, lazy and profligate; yet the people were so superst.i.tious and credulous that they feared to disobey them, or reserve anything which they might be required to confess." [Footnote: Washburn's "History of Paraguay."]

In the front gardens of many of the rustic houses I noticed a wooden cross draped with broad white lace. The dead are always interred in the family garden, and these marked the site of the graves. When the people can afford it, a priest is brought to perform the sad rite of burial, but the Paraguayan Pai is proverbially drunken and lazy. Once after a church feast, which was largely given up to drinking, the priest fell over on the floor in a state of intoxication. "While he thus lay drunk, a boy crawled through the door to ask his blessing, whereupon the priest swore horribly and waved him off, 'Not to-day, not to-day those farces! I am drunk, very drunk!'" Such an one has been described by Pollock: "He was a man who stole the livery of the court of heaven to serve the devil in; in holy guise transacted villainies that ordinary mortals durst not meddle with."

Lest it might be thought that I am strongly prejudiced, I give this extract from a responsible historian of that unhappy land: "The simple-minded and superst.i.tious Paraguayans reverenced a Pai, or father, as the immediate representative of G.o.d. They blindly and implicitly followed the instructions given to them, and did whatever was required at his hands. Many of the licentious brotherhood took advantage of this superst.i.tious confidence placed in them by the people to an extent which, in a moral country, would not only shock every feeling of our nature to relate, but would, in the individual instances, appear to be incredible, and, in the aggregate, be counted as slanderous on humanity."

During my stay in Pagwaomi, a dance was held on the sward outside one of the houses, and the national whirl, the _sarandiy_, gave pleasure to all. The females wove flowers in their hair, and made garlands of them to adorn their waists. Others had caught fire-flies, which nestled in the wavy tresses and lit up the semi-darkness with a soft light, like so many green stars. Love whisperings, in the musical Guarani, were heard by willing ears, and eyelight was thus added to starlight. As the dancers flitted here and there in their white garments, or came out from the shade of the orange trees, they looked ethereal, like the inhabitants of another world one sees at times in romantic dreams, for this village is surely a hundred years behind the moon.

From this scene of innocent happiness I was taken to more than one sick-bed, for it soon became known that I carried medicines.

Will the reader accompany me? Enter then--a windowless mud hut See, lying on sheepskins and burning with fever, a young woman-almost a girl-wailing "_Che raciy!>_" (I am sick!) Notice the intense eagerness of her eyes as she gazes into mine when I commence to minister to her.

Watch her submit to my necessarily painful treatment with child-like faith. Then, before we quietly steal out again, listen to her low-breathed "_Acuerame_" (Already I feel better).

In a larger house, a hundred yards away, an earthenware lamp, with cotton wick dipping in raw castor oil, sheds fitful gleams on a dying woman. The trail of sin is only too evident, even in thoughtless Pegwaomi. The tinselled saints are on the altar at the foot of the bed, and on the woman's breast, tightly clutched, is a crucifix, but Mrs.

Encarnacion has never heard of the Incarnate One whom she is soon to meet. Perhaps, if Christians are awake by that time, her grandchildren may hear the "story."

In that rustic cottage, half covered with jasmine, and shaded by a royal palm, a child lies very sick. Listen to its low, weak moaning as we cross the threshold. The mother has procured a piece of tape, the length of which, she says, is the exact measure of the head of Saint Blas. This she has repeatedly put around her babe's head as an unfailing cure. Somehow the charm does not work and the woman is sorely perplexed. While we helplessly look on the infant dies! Outside, the moon soared high, throwing a silver veil over the grim pathos of it all; but in the breast of the writer was a surging dissatisfaction and--anger, at his fellow--Christians in the homeland, who in their thoughtless selfishness will not reach out a helping hand to the perishing of other lands.

Would the ever-present Spirit, who wrote "Be ye angry" not understand?

Would the Master of patience and forbearance, who Himself showed righteous anger, enter into it? Is the Great G.o.d, who sees these sheep left without a shepherd, Himself angry? Surely it is well to ask?

"Oh, heavy lies the weight of ill on many hearts, And comforters are needed sore of Christlike touch."

In this village I made inquiries for another servant and guide, and was directed to "Timoteo, the very man." Liking his looks, and being able to come to satisfactory terms, I engaged him as my second helper.

Timoteo had a sister called Salvadora (Saviour). She pounded corn in a mortar with a hardwood pestle, and made me another baking of chipa, with which we further burdened the pack-horse, and away we started again, with affectionate farewells and tears, towards the unknown.

Next day we were joined by a traveller who was escaping to the interior. He plainly declared himself as a murderer, and told us he had shot one of the doctors in Asuncion. Through being well connected, he had, after three weeks' detention in prison, been liberated, as he boasted to us, _con todo buen nombre y fama (with good name and report). The relatives of the murdered man, however, did not agree with this verdict, and sought his life. During the day we shot an iguana, and after a meal from its fat tail our new acquaintance, finding the pace too slow for his hasty flight, left us, and I was not sorry. We met a string of bullock carts, each drawn by six animals and having a spare one behind. The lumbering wagons were on their way from the Paraguayan mate fields, and had a load of over two thousand pounds each. Jolting over huge tree-trunks, or anon sinking in a swamp, followed by swarms of gad-flies, the patient animals wended their way.