Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 15, No. 90, June, 1875 — John Shaqi
Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 15, No. 90, June, 1875Various
Science
Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 15, No. 90, June, 1875
Various
Literature, Modern -- 19th century -- Periodicals; Science -- Periodicals
The train on its way to Paraguari passes Trinidad and many other
stations. The station-houses are all small structures covered with
tile roofs. At Luque, a village where the passengers stop for
refreshments, the women of the place flock at the windows and offer
for sale embroideries of their own invention worked on tulle or on a
special kind of netting, while the venders of lunches appear, not with
the traditional fried oysters, fried chickens or sandwiches of our own
favored land, but with bottles of fresh milk and _chiapa_, a kind of
bread made from manioc, among the ingredients of which are starch and
eggs, and for which Luque is famous. The engineer of the train, an
Englishman, is a person who is as important in his way as is the
Brazilian minister in his. At Luque he descends from his locomotive to
chat with a friend on the platform. Time--or what would be "time"
elsewhere--is up, but our Englishman continues to talk,
notwithstanding that after the utterance of impatient cries the
passengers leave the cars in wrath to crowd around him and overwhelm
him with abusive words. An admirable representative of English phlegm,
he finishes his conversation at his ease, looks at his watch, climbs
in a leisurely way to his position on the engine and puts the train in
motion. There is no danger of collision with any other train, however,
for this train is the only one on the line. It leaves Asuncion every
morning, moving at an average rate of fifteen miles an hour, and
arrives at Paraguari some time during the day, at the will of the
engineer. Returning from Paraguari the same day, it reaches Asuncion,
remarks M. Forgues, when it pleases Heaven that it shall do so.
[Illustration: HOW THE POOR TRAVEL IN PARAGUAY.]
The scenery along the road is beautiful, but the country is almost a
desert. Around the stations are groups of dwellings of varied
appearance, the most solidly built of which are connected with farms
that belonged to the late President Lopez. At times appear palm trees,
the feathery leaves of which mingle with beautiful effect with the
pale or dark foliage of an exuberant vegetation. Lopez had established
telegraphic communication between the mouth of the Paraguay and
Paraguari, but the line having been broken between the latter
terminus and a place called Cerro Leon, and nobody having been
sufficiently interested in it to have it repaired, it now stops at
Cerro Leon, the only telegraphic wire in the country, as the Asuncion
and Paraguari Railroad is the only railroad.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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