Although The National
Mottoes Vary With The Different Flags, Yet The Chilian Is The Most
Universally Followed In South America, As Elsewhere:
"Por la razon o
la fuerza" (By right or by might).
The Paraguayans contended
heroically for what they considered their rights, and such bloody
battles were fought that at Curupaita alone 5,000 dead and dying were
left on the field! Added to the carnage of battle was disease on
every hand. The worst epidemic of smallpox ever known in the annals
of history was when the Brazilians lost 43,000 men, while this war
was being waged against Paraguay. One hundred thousand bodies were
left unburied, and on them the wild animals and vultures gorged
themselves. The saying now is a household word, that the jaguar of
those lands is the most to be dreaded, through having tasted so much
human blood.
"Lopez, the cause of all this sacrifice and misery, has gone to his
final account, his soul stained with the blood of seven hundred
thousand of his people, the victims of his ambition and cruelty."
Towns which flourished before the outbreak of hostilities were sacked
by the emboldened Indians from the Chaco and wiped off the map, San
Salvador (Holy Saviour) being a striking example. I visited the ruins
of this town, where formerly dwelt about 8,000 souls. Now the streets
are grass-grown, and the forest is creeping around church and
barracks, threatening to bury them. I rode my horse through the high
portal of the cannon-battered church, while the stillness of the
scene reminded me of a city of the dead.
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