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 Minie 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