I
Took Him Across The Ocean, Away From His Tropical Home, And - He Died.
I Am Not Sentimental - Nay, I Have Been Accused Of Hardness - But I
Make This Reference To Pancho In Loving Memory.
Unlike some friends
of my life, he was constant and true.
[Footnote: From letters
awaiting me at the post-office, I learned, with intense sorrow and
regret, that my strange patron had gone "the way of all flesh" The
land I had been to explore, along-with a bequest of $250,000, passed
into the hands of the Baptist Missionary Society, to the Secretary of
which Society all my reports were given.]
CHAPTER XI.
CHACO SAVAGES.
The Gran Chaco, an immense region in the interior of the continent,
said to be 2,500,000 square miles in extent, is, without doubt, the
darkest part of "The Darkest Land." From time immemorial this has
been given up to the Indians; or, rather, they have proved so warlike
that the white man has not dared to enter the vast plain. The Chaco
contains a population of perhaps 3,000,000 of aborigines. These are
divided into many tribes, and speak numerous languages. From the
military outposts of Argentina at the south, to the Fort of Olimpo,
450 miles north, the country is left entirely to the savage. The
former are built to keep back the Tobas from venturing south, and the
latter is a Paraguayan fort on the Brazilian frontier. Here about one
hundred soldiers are quartered and some fifty women banished, for the
Paraguayan Government sends its female convicts there.
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