"The mission country of the Jesuits was situated amid those delightful tracts of land where the modern Republics of Paraguay, Brazil and Uruguay now meet. From north to south it lay, roughly, between the parallels of 25° and 30°, and thus it comprised a stretch of territory the open spaces of which may rightfully be called 'the Garden of South America.' We may now survey this spot in the height of its prosperity, beginning with some aspects of its thirty towns, which, of course, include some of the most salient features of all. "The Jesuits of Paraguay were nothing if not consistent, and their policy was eloquently shown in the construction of their towns. None of their converts, decreed the missionaries, should be permitted to outdo his, or her, neighbourhood in the matter of dress and outward appearance. The priests did their best to ensure equality and the absence of heartburning by a regulation that every Indian should be garbed exactly the same, both in material and cut, as were his brethren and sisters. This same theory was made to apply in the case of the dwelling-places of the Guaranís. It has been remarked that these resembled each other as closely as one drop of water resembles another. 'The arrangement of these,' says Alvear, who wrote from personal experience, 'is so uniform that when you have seen one you may say that you have seen them all. Some tiny freak of architecture or some little touch of private adornment--that is the only difference that may be remarked. Essentially they are all the same, and this has been brought to such a pitch that those who travel through them are apt to begin to wonder if they are not being accompanied by the same enchanted town, the eyes of a lynx being needed to tell the difference between the inhabitants and clothes of one of these places and those of another. The plan of them all is rectangular, the streets stretching from north to south and from east to west, and the Plaza, which is always roomy and level, in the middle. The church, college and cemetery occupy that side of the Plaza that faces north.' "This description affords, at all events, a rough and general outline of one of the Jesuit towns. It leaves, however, many details of interest to be filled in. The aspect of one of these places, it may be said, was extremely pleasant, the Jesuits who understood these matters very thoroughly, having introduced orange-groves and other such growths with consummate skill among the buildings. The church would be a most solidly built edifice, containing three or five naves, as the case might be. Its interior, moreover, was richly decorated by the Indian craftsmen and workers in metal, and here, one imagines, some distinguishing originality must have occurred, although no doubt this was avoided as much as possible.