Humaita had already been well fortified on the land side, and Lopez now threw up the trenches at the top of the bluff at Curupayty, the first high land on the Paraguay River north of the allied army and south of Humaita, and connected it with the latter fortress. Lopez had the advantage of the services of a clever English civil engineer; and the fortifications, though rude, were soon made practically impregnable to assault. In spite of their defeats, the Paraguayans were as ready as ever to attack when Lopez commanded, or to stand up and be shot down to the last man. They were the most obedient soldiers imaginable; they never complained of an injustice and never questioned an order when given. Even if a soldier were flogged, he consoled himself by saying, "If my father did not flog me, who would?" Every one called his superior officer his "father," and Lopez was the "Great Father." Each officer was responsible with his life for the faithfulness and conduct of his men and had orders to shoot any that wavered. Each soldier knew that the men who touched shoulders with him right and left were instructed to shoot him if he tried to desert or fly, and those two knew that the men beyond them would shoot them if they failed to kill the poor fellow in the centre of the five. This cruel system answered perfectly with the Paraguayans, and to the very end of the war they never refused to fight steadily against the most hopeless odds. Meanwhile, the allies awaited reinforcements and supplies in the noisome swamps, dying meantime by thousands of fever. By the end of June, when the allies finally determined to assault the fortifications around Humaita, Lopez had twenty thousand men on the ground. After some bloody and indecisive fighting in the swamps, General Mitre, the Commander-in-Chief, ordered a grand attack upon the entrenchments at Curupayty. On the 22nd of September, 1866, it began with the bombardment by the Brazilian ironclads. Eighteen thousand men in four columns advanced from the south, and threw themselves blindly against the fortifications. When they came to close quarters they were thrown into disorder by the terrible artillery fire from the Paraguayan trenches, which cross-enfiladed them in different directions. The enormous canisters discharged from the eight-inch guns point-blank, at a distance of two or three hundred yards, wrought fearful execution. The rifle fire of the allies was useless, and the Paraguayans simply waited behind their trenches until the Brazilians and Argentines were close at hand and then fired. The allies retired in good order, after suffering a loss of one-third their number. The soldiers obediently kept rushing on to certain death until their officers, seeing that success was hopeless, told them that they might retreat. The courage of the Paraguayans had been proved in their unsuccessful assaults on the allies the year before, and now the Argentines and Brazilians showed even in this awful