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 God, 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.
Here and there one may see by the roadside a large wooden cross, with
a rudely carved wooden rooster on the top, while below it are the
nails, scourge, hammer, pincers and spear of gruesome crucifixion
memory. At other places there are smaller shrines with a statuette of
the Virgin inside, and candles invariably burning, provided by the
generous wayfarers. It is interesting to note that the old Indians
had, at the advent of the Spaniards, cairns of stones along their
paths, and the pious Indian would contribute a stone when he passed
as an offering to Pachacamac, who would keep away the evil spirits.
That custom is still kept up by the Christian (?) Paraguayan, with
the difference that now it is given to the Virgin. My guide would
get down from his horse when we arrived at these altars, and
contribute a stone to the ever-growing heap. If a specially bright
one is offered, he told me it was more gratifying to the goddess.
Feeling that we were very likely to meet with many evil spirits,
Timoteo carefully sought for bright stones. The people are very
religious, yet with it all are terribly depraved! The truth is seldom
spoken, and my guide was, unfortunately, no exception to the rule. As
we left the haunts of men, and difficulties thickened, he would often
entreat the help of Holy Mary, but in the same breath would lie and
curse!
Sighting a miserable hut, we called to inquire for meat. The master
of the house, I discovered, was a leper, and I further learned, on
asking if I might water my horses, that the nearest water was three
miles away. The man and wife and their large family certainly looked
as though water was a luxury too costly to use on the skin. The leper
was most hospitable, however; he killed a sheep for us, and we sat
down to a feast of mutton. After this we pushed on to water the
horses. By sunset we arrived at a cattle ranch near the river Ipane,
and there we stayed for the night. At supper all dipped in the same
stew-pan, and afterwards rinsed out the mouth with large draughts of
water, which they squirted back on the brick floor of the dining-
room. The men then smoked cigarettes of tobacco rolled in corn
leaves, and the women smoked their six-inch-long cigars. Finding that
two of the men understood Spanish, I read some simple parts of
scripture to them by the light of a dripping grease lamp.
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