Reference has been made to the scantiness of the attire of the Paraguayan women at one period of the war. Some terrible facts are related in connection with this matter, showing the horrible desperation and sternness with which Lopez conducted his military operations, bringing untold woe on his own people in his savage resolve to retard at any cost the advance of the army of invasion. When the allies captured Humaita, Lopez, retreating, decided to convert the country lying in the enemy's front into a desert. He issued a proclamation ordering the entire population living south of Asuncion to retire with all their animals toward the interior, and to follow him into the cordillera, eighty leagues to the east of the city. This order applied to all classes without exception, the families of high dignitaries, ministers and superior officers being included as well as the humbler sort. The result was a terrified hegira of the people _en masse_, while behind them the Paraguayan rear-guard destroyed houses and whatever could afford shelter or subsistence to the enemy, leaving only bare fields where once had flourished prosperous estancias and peaceful villages. Terrible scenes ensued. Twenty-four hours' notice only was given to the people to leave their homes. Delinquents and laggards were sabred mercilessly or killed with lance-thrusts. This mode of massacre was preferred, as it was a saving of valuable powder and shot. Women and children were slaughtered in this way, as well as infirm old men. No provision had been made to feed the famishing multitude that sought the cordillera, and thousands of the homeless wretches died of starvation and exposure in the mountains, where all that the women and children could obtain in the way of food was oranges and roots. There were numerous instances of cannibalism among these starving people, and our traveler was shown a woman in Asuncion who had eaten a portion of her sister to allay the pangs of hunger. The effect on the allies of this frightful course was to compel them to pay a fabulous price for provisions and for their transportation to the army. Another effect was that at times, in the heat of the pursuit of Lopez's forces, after an engagement the bodies of the soldiers who had been killed in the battle were left to rot where they fell, as there were no civilians to bury them. On one occasion, after a heavy skirmish, two or three hundred slain Argentines remained unburied, the army having marched forward in pursuit of the retreating Paraguayans. The horrors of this campaign were relieved by one prosaic fact, which in itself bridges the chasm between the terrible and the ridiculous: this was, that the allied troops were accompanied amid all these scenes of carnage by a poor Italian organ-grinder, carrying his organ on his back, who played during the halts in the march while the Brazilian soldiers danced to his music.