Evening is about deepening into night when M. Forgues arrives at Villa Rica. His host in the town, a prosperous shopkeeper, invites him to dinner, and at the table he meets the mistress of the house, a tall, handsome Paraguayan woman, who receives him and his fellow-traveler with polished courtesy. She belongs to the class of the posterity of the old Spanish colonists. She is dressed in a long calico dress with a white train, and with a row of small red buttons down the front. The sleeves have deep cuffs, also fastened with small buttons. A wide, turned-down collar partly covers the shoulders, and exposes to the sight the lower part of a very shapely neck. In the course of conversation this lady informs M. Forgues that the department of Villa Rica is perhaps the only part of the country which may give an idea of what Paraguay was before the war. The men, it is true, were killed off, as were the men of the other departments, but by a happy chance the women and children were spared that terrible flight to the Cordilleras whereby thousands of their sex and age perished. His hostess relates to him her experiences during that fearful period. After the occupation of Asuncion by the Brazilians, and their advance as far as Paraguari, Lopez gave the order that Villa Rica should be abandoned and that the population should follow him to the mountains. As it happened, however, the commanding officer of the two hundred men who constituted the Paraguayan force at Villa Rica just about that time committed some breach of discipline, for which he was arrested by order of Lopez and sent to another point to be tried and shot. Coincidently with this his detachment suddenly fell back, leaving word with the inhabitants to quit the town within twenty-four hours or take the consequences of disobedience. Despair and terror prevailed among the people, and while they were hesitating as to what course to pursue, before the twenty-four hours of grace had expired news came to them that the Brazilians had reached Ibitimi in the pursuit. Then the whole population fled in the night to the Brazilians for protection, traveling until morning to Ibitimi, twelve leagues distant. [Illustration]