The journey is made in two days and on horseback. Their
route in the beginning lies across a small mountain-range, and then
through a piece of thick woods bearing an evil reputation as the home
of footpads. But the two pass through in safety, for the robbers are
either asleep or absent from their haunts. Reaching the head-waters of
the Yuqueri, which empties into the Canabe, a tributary of the
Paraguay, they skirt the heights of Angostura, where Lopez, after the
evacuation of Humaita, planted his batteries, and which he made his
final strategic point. Near by, on the right bank of the Canabe, is
the field of Las Lomas Valentinas, where the Paraguayan president
fought his last great battle. So far, the route had been through an
almost unpeopled solitude. In the evening they reach Ibitimi, a
village built, as are all the Paraguayan hamlets, in the shape of a
square, with its little church in the centre. Here the ravages of war
are painfully apparent. Many of the houses have gone to ruin,
dismantled piecemeal by passers-by, their owners never having come
back from the battlefield to reoccupy them. The surrounding country is
charming, and, seated on one side, M. Forgues sketches a cart drawn by
oxen which goes by slowly with the declining sun shining on its
leather top. An eight-year-old boy of the village, whose attire is
limited strictly to a necklace of black seeds, approaches him, looks
over his shoulder, and reads aloud the word which he writes under his
sketch: "Ibitimi." Returning from his little sketching excursion to
where his companion is awaiting him, he observes that he has suddenly
become an object of mingled curiosity and respect on the part of the
villagers. The cause of this prominence is a mystery to him until he
learns that during his absence his friend had spread the rumor that he
is a civil engineer who has come to make a definite survey of the line
of the Asuncion and Villa Rica Railroad, which, although it was
completed only to Paraguari, was originally intended to extend to
Villa Rica, taking Ibitimi in its route. Thus become a great man in
the little community, M. Forgues is besought by the political chief of
the village--a functionary who fulfills the duties of mayor--almost
the only male adult in Ibitimi, to command his services. These
services are pressed on him with so much warmth that he is fain to
seek relief from this persecuting hospitality by announcing his desire
to sleep that night under th