Leaving this spot, and traveling five leagues farther in the direction of Paraguari, M. Forgues and his companion reach the village of Mbuyapey at eight o'clock at night. Here they meet with an adventure. As they enter the village three men, composing the guard of the place and armed with rusty pikes of the Lopez period, challenge them and order them to halt. An interview is held in the darkness, and after a thousand explanations they are permitted to pass. Early next morning they are aroused from sleep by a tumult at their window. Through the grating a number of boys are glaring in on them, capering and uttering a variety of ejaculations. The secret of this popular demonstration is soon explained, for almost at the same moment the door is opened abruptly and the magistrate of the place makes his appearance, asking in Spanish to see their passports and the passports of their horses. The dispute thickens. Finally, M. Forgues, toying with his revolver, proclaims that he and his companion are Frenchmen, and not Paraguayans, that no passports are necessary to travel in the country, and that they cannot be interfered with with impunity. At this a change comes over the magistrate. He begs a thousand pardons, and justifies his course as being merely in the interest of good order, while declaring his belief in the entire respectability of our traveler and his friend. Even in this solitary and almost deserted village a school flourishes (and here it may be remarked in passing that so diffused is public instruction in Paraguay that it is a rare thing to meet with a Paraguayan who cannot sign his name), and when M. Forgues and his companion ride away they are followed by the benign smiles of the magistrate and the bewildered looks of the scholars.