The disputes and dissensions which arose in 1863 between Brazil, Argentine, and Uruguay with reference to a revolution then in progress in the latter country, were seized upon by Lopez as an excuse to offer his services as mediator between the contending parties. This offer was declined on all hands, for the name of Paraguay was not popular in the “Plate” at this time, owing to the policy of the former country in excluding foreigners, and badly treating those who did manage to get in. [Illustration: A PARAGUAYAN GENTLEMAN.] Lopez, thus repulsed, seized a Brazilian steamer passing up the river from Montevideo to Matto Grosso, and converted it into a gunboat for his own use. His next step was the invasion of Matto Grosso, where defenceless towns and villages were ruthlessly sacked and burnt. The details of the long war that followed, the many battles, skirmishes, and bombardments all sink into insignificance before the conduct of Francesco Lopez himself. The thin veneer of civilisation he acquired during his stay in Paris soon wore off, and the traits of the Indian savage, inherited from his Guycuru ancestors, were displayed in all their nakedness. The catalogue of his crimes includes the execution of one of his brothers and two of his brothers-in-law. Their wives and his own sisters were imprisoned in cages and covered bullock-carts for months, being fed through an aperture, as if they were wild beasts, whilst one of them was stripped nude and driven thus through the streets. His most intimate friends and best generals were tortured and shot, and the wife of one general who had surrendered to the enemy was speared by his orders. He forced his mother, aged seventy, to swear before the altar that she recognised him only as her child, compelling her to curse the rest of her children as rebels and traitors. He flouted the nations with impunity and subjected foreigners, including English and Americans, living in his capital to the most excruciating tortures. This monster was killed by the thrust of a lance after his few remaining troops had been defeated and the country reduced to utter helplessness. The three allies, Argentine, Brazil, and Uruguay, had by a treaty signed in 1865 bound themselves to respect and guarantee for a period of five years the independence, sovereignty, and territorial integrity of Paraguay, and the new Government which arose from out the ruins undertook to pay a war indemnity of nearly fifty million pounds sterling, a debt, it is almost needless to say, that has not been discharged up to the present time. The jealousies of these erstwhile allies are the best guarantee of the continued independence of Paraguay, and even the continual dislocation of business occasioned by the incessant revolutions in the country does not tempt outsiders to interfere. The last two or three years would have been prosperous ones for the country but for the political unrest which makes it almost impossible for any development to take place.