Paraguay, as soon as they can definitely shake off the revolutionary
habit and establish an orderly permanence of government. The people
are a fine people; the strains of blood--white and Indian--are good.

We walked up the streets of Concepcion, and interestedly looked at
everything of interest: at the one-story houses, their windows covered
with gratings of fretted ironwork, and their occasional open doors
giving us glimpses into cool inner courtyards, with trees and flowers;
at the two-wheel carts, drawn by mules or oxen; at an occasional
rider, with spurs on his bare feet, and his big toes thrust into the
small stirrup-rings; at the little stores, and the warehouses for
matte and hides. Then we came to a pleasant little inn, kept by a
Frenchman and his wife, of old Spanish style, with its patio, or inner
court, but as neat as an inn in Normandy or Brittany. We were sitting
at coffee, around a little table, when in came the colonel of the
garrison--for Concepcion is the second city in Paraguay. He told me
that they had prepared a reception for me! I was in my rough hunting-
clothes, but there was nothing to do but to accompany my kind hosts
and trust to their good nature to pardon my shortcomings in the matter
of dress. The colonel drove me about in a smart open carriage, with
two good horses and a liveried driver. It was a much more fashionable
turnout than would be seen in any of our cities save the largest, and
even in them probably not in the service of a public official. In all
the South American countries there is more pomp and ceremony in
connection with public functions than with us, and at these functions
the liveried servants, often with knee-breeches and powdered hair, are
like those seen at similar European functions; there is not the
democratic simplicity which better suits our own habits of life and
ways of thought. But the South Americans often surpass us, not merely
in pomp and ceremony but in what is of real importance, courtesy; in