War's Desolation

The oll town presents a half oriental half medieval appearance - its i few f-plL'iuli.l palaces, which belong to the late dictators and tïu-ir families and favorites, Bandwiched among huts of mud and cam witli bark roofs and one window apiece. Palms, bananas, passion flowera and other tropical plants and blooms abound - but you meet few people, and those are inostly women. The graesy streets, according to a Paraguay correspondent, have a sad, deserted look, constantly reiniuding ono that the sons and husbands and lovers and brothers perisbed on the battlefields or died of starvation in hiding, or rotted in prison, as thousands did who were ignorant even of what they were accused, or were tortured and murdered by the three tyrants who ruled and ruined the country, llore women do the work that in other parts of the world is monopolized by the stronger sex - such as cleanipg the streets, the ships, driving the ox carts, cultivating the fields, carrying on the markets, etc, and it is said that during the long. hard war, they made the best and bravest soldiers. Naturally, where men are in the proportion of one to seven, they are at a higher premium than elsewhere, and in Paraguay they are figuratively kept in cotton-wool by their admiring female relatives.