influential capitalist who is to introduce foreign money among them.
Attentions are showered on him. The political chief of the town
invites him to a twelve-o'clock breakfast to meet the notabilities of
the place. A salvo of firecrackers at noon announces that the chief is
prepared to welcome his friends, and the invited guests, male and
female, hasten to the prefecture. Before entering the banquet-hall the
guests, as they arrive, take seats in wooden chairs in a large
ball-room which adjoins it, receiving as they do so, from the hands of
the host, a glass of _caña_. The breakfast-table is decked with
flowers, and under it grunts and roots about among the feet of the
guests a very tame tapir as large as a decently-sized pig. The hard
and dry Spanish wine used at the entertainment is drunk out of large
beer-glasses. The mistress of the house and the officers of the
Paraguayan guard that composes the political chief's escort act as
waiters. After many toasts have been offered and honored, M. Forgues,
mustering up his few words of Spanish-Guaranian, drinks to the health
of the pretty girls of Villa Rica amid the enthusiastic hurrahs of the
guests, one of whom, with exclamations of _Bueno! bravo!_ and the
like, leaves his seat to scatter flowers over our traveler's head,
wishing him at the same time every prosperity. At this moment a bass
drum and a clarionet intervene in the clamor with a delicious French
melody, "Ah! zut alors si Nadar est malade!" and the company retire to
the ball-room to dance, and also, women as well as men, to smoke
immense cigars.

Yakaguazu, a large square village near Villa Rica, is visited by M.
Forgues. It contains eighty or ninety houses, and a church which is
the counterpart of that at Itape. There is a school in the place
attended by one hundred and twenty-five pupils, who secure a patriotic
but limited education with nothing in the way of a printed text-book