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but not more so than in Matabeleland to-day, though our arquebuses are an improvement on those of Hulderico's time.

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The Carió Indians make a wine of algarroba' (called by the Germans Joannebrot' or ' Bockorulein'); 'their city is on the river which flows into the Parabol' (Hulderico always calls the Paraguay the Parabol), and is called Fuechkamyn.'

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The unfortunate translator, in a foot note, says: It is not easy to find out this place or to make plain the error of its name;' and, indeed, there is a most puzzling air of Thuringia about the spelling. After having made friends with the Cariós, his captain sent Hulderico to Santa Catalina, in Brazil, and on their return they were wrecked in the River Plate, and all lost except myself and five others, who swam to shore holding to the mast. We reached shore naked and without food, and had to walk eighty leagues to the town of San Gabriel, by which the grace and care of God was abundantly made manifest.' The grace is, of course, a matter for theologians, but the care is not so manifest to ordinary mortals as it seems to have been to the writer of the narrative.

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'Things being thus' (begins the next chapter after the narration of the shipwreck), Alvar Nuñez Cabeza de Vaca arrived from Spain with 400 men and thirty horses.' He landed in Santa Catalina and marched overland to Assumption, in Paraguay, a distance of nearly 2,000 miles, with the loss of only a single soldier.

Of all the conquerors of the Indies Alvar Nuñez was perhaps the most remarkable. Born of a great family, he had distinguished himself in Mexico, and already undergone ten years' captivity in Florida. Alone of all the conquerors he treated the Indians with strict justice, so that, as Hulderico says, 'did but an Indian wench squeal, the soldier had to suffer for it.'

Ayolas, the lieutenant appointed by Don Pedro de Mendoza, being dead, the soldiers had elected Dominguez Martinez de Irala to succeed him. Irala was a Biscayan, a man of low origin but of considerable character; he eventually became Governor of Paraguay, and had already commenced the series of intrigues by which he succeeded in disgracing Alvar Nuñez, and in sending him a prisoner to Spain. For the present the pleasant days of pillage and Indian wenches' squealing disregarded were over for Hulderico, for 'our new general treated the soldiers harshly, and forced us to pay for all we took.' Was ever such injustice heard of? Men had not left their countries to pay for things as if they were in a shop in Antwerp.

Alvar Nuñez started shortly on an expedition to reach Peru by land. This was the dream of all the explorers of the River Plate as soon as they discovered there were no precious metals in that country, and in such an attempt Ayolas, the lieutenant appointed by Mendoza, died. After sailing up the river 'we came to the country of the Lasacusis, who go naked and painted in blue patterns (especially the

women), and with such art that even in Germany I doubt that any of our best limners could exceed the fineness of their designs. They wear a chrystal through their lower lips, and are not handsome.' Here I can add my testimony to Hulderico's, for a Chaco Indian with a hole in his lower lip and a piece of crystal in it, saliva exuding through the hole, is not a pleasant sight. 'After asking for peace' (this seems apocryphal), we fell on them and killed many of the men, and captured many of the women, who were of great value to us.'

In what their value consisted Hulderico does not reveal; but a terrible disillusion was soon to come upon him, for the cacique came to the General Alvar Nuñez, and promised to obey the king if the women were returned. The general consented to this, considering that the Indians were subjects of the king.' So that 'the women of value' were lost to the soldiers, 'at which they murmured.' This is one of the many instances, both in Hulderico's narrative and Alvar Nuñez' own memoirs, in which he seems to have incurred great odium by protecting the Indians.

In the battle, 'so numerous were the infidels that many of our men were massacred.' But 'the multitude of dogs is the undoing of the hare,' observes the writer. 'Massacred' is the same euphemism in use to-day in Africa, where the French or English troops merely 'kill' Arabs or negroes, but when fortune goes the other way are always 'massacred.' So Hulderico goes on doing his duty and slaying Indians, keeping always his arquebuse 'in order and fit for service,' and noting down with little prolixity all that he thought worth noticing, even to the dimensions of a crocodile. The study of natural history always presented a fine field for the early discoverers of America. Certainly it had difficulties unknown to-day, notably in the fact that in those days there were more animals to study. Thus we learn that the 'carbuncle is a little animal which has a mirror in its forehead which shines like fire.' Also that the only safe way to kill a crocodile is to hold a looking-glass before your face, for if its eyes meet yours you certainly turn mad. This, though, cannot be true, for I have killed above 3,000 of them, and never had a looking-glass in my possession during all my pilgrimages in the Indies.' There is a butterfly, also, which turns first to a worm and then into a rat, and which destroys the crops; it feeds on human flesh, and is discriminating, too, as to the kind of man it feeds on, for Mas le sabe carne de un Pagano que nó de Español 6 Castellano.'1

This was fortunate, as the number of the Spaniards was relatively small. It should be observed, though, that Hulderico never says he saw these wonders, but only relates them as having been told by others. Many of his observations on the Indian tribes leave little to be desired for terseness, though they are not exactly descriptive, 'La Argentina (canto iii.), cɔntemporary poem descriptive of conquest of River Plate, by Barco de la Centenera.

as when he says, 'the Sebenes, these Indians have moustaches.' One is glad to hear this, though I believe it to have been a mistake. 'The Ackerés have larger stomachs than other Indians, and are swift of foot.' Largeness of stomach is not invariably accompanied by fleetness of foot, but the power of observation involved does great credit to the narrator.

So he chronicles his adventures, sometimes marching for days in water to the knees,' sometimes marching for days without a drop of water, so that even the most avaricious amongst us came to think of water as of more account than gold.' At last, 'having marched and sailed more than 300 leagues, according to the calculations of those who understood the stars,' the expedition came to the Lake of the Xarayes, and saw 'la casa del gran Moxo.' This palace was built of stones four-square, with many flanking towers, and as fair in its proportions as any castle of Spain or Flanders.' This is the only instance where Hulderico's enthusiasm seems to have got the better of his judgment, for no such building of stone with towers was ever found east of the Andes. Here the expedition turned, on account of the illness of the general. The description he gives of the intrigues of Irala and final banishment of Alvar Nuñez is very biassed, as befits a soldier writing of a general who was particular about Indian wenches,' trifles into which no self-respecting conqueror should have looked too closely.

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Hulderico returned to Assumption, and tells us no more of himself, of Alvar Nuñez, the carbuncle,'' the Indians with moustaches,' or anything of note, till at last one day I was on guard over the well, for there was scarcity of water and the people had to drink by turns, when a letter was brought to me saying my brother was dead, and that my family prayed for my return; the letter had come in fourteen months from Cadiz.' He does not seem to have considered the time excessive, but without words 'I dressed myself in my best clothes, and putting on a fine red mantle I went to the general, and laying my services before him, asked for permission to return.' This was granted with many flattering phrases and a letter for the king. The general said that I had been a faithful soldier, not anxious to slay, but always performing orders and keeping my arms and armour in good condition.' 'Not anxious to slay, but always performing orders,' seems to reveal that orders' had been often peremptory.

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In six months, and after dangers not a few, he reached a point in Brazil, 'llamado San Gabriel así de Cristianos como Ingleses.' Here he took ship for Lisbon, and arrived with all my luggage and many parrots after a voyage of five months. In Cadiz ‘I engaged a passage in the Henrique Lebertzen for Antwerp.' The parrots and the luggage went in another ship, and a great tempest having arisen, the

2 The Englishman is still a doubtful Christian to the Latin races, and they, I suppose, are pagans to the Englishman.

ship went down, so that 'I arrived in Antwerp as poor as when I left.' 'Still' ('still' seems ambiguous), ' after twenty years it pleased Providence that I should arrive at the port from which I sailed, but what miseries and hungers, perils and journeyings I passed in my sojourn in the Indies is only known to God himself, to whom all praise, &c. Amen.' So far Hulderico, but in a note he informs us he retired to Estrasburgo.' Perhaps when there he sometimes doubted whether Providence had really been so kind in bringing him back home. Perhaps he wandered up and down the streets seeking for sun and finding none. Perchance (like others who have known the Indies) the recollection of the adventurous life came back at times, and turned the Leberwurst and Sauerkraut to Dead Sea fruit. Perhaps he heard the parrots scream through the woods of Paraguay, saw the Paraná, with its thousand islands almost awash, thicketed with seibos and lapachos with their yellow and purple flowers, smelt the sweet espinillo blossom in his nostrils, and hated Estrasburgo. Seated in a trim Dutch garden with cut box hedges and clean brick walks, dozing in some arbour over his pipe of right Varinas, perhaps he wished he had remained in Paraguay to fall by an Indian arrow like a conquistador, and that some other soldier had received the order to write commentaries.

R. B. CUNNINGHAME GRAHAM.

THE PAST AND THE FUTURE

OF GIBRALTAR

SOME places seem designed by nature to act as conductors attracting the currents of electricity with which the political world is charged, and of these the Rock of Gibraltar is, I think, one of the most remarkable.

Whether we look at its war record, which shows no less than fourteen sieges crowded together in the comparatively short period of 470 years, or turn to the diplomatic history of Europe, in which we find the place continually a subject of discussion between statesmen, or study the pages of such historians as Mahan, where Gibraltar is constantly used to point a moral or adorn a tale,' we find the Rock, rising spire-like from the ocean, continually playing an important part, the centre of an attraction by no means local only, but exercising a wide-spreading influence upon the conduct of wars and the destinies of nations.

This prominence is the more remarkable seeing that less than twelve hundred years ago the Rock of Calpe was almost unknown and quite uninhabited, save perhaps by some solitary watcher on its summit, some tender of a beacon fire which in still earlier days served to warn the neighbouring city of Carteia of the approach of Phoenician, Carthaginian, or Roman galleys.

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Until the discovery,' so to speak, of the place by Tarik, the first Moorish invader of Spain in the year 711 A.D., the Rock was in the happy position of having no history, save such as legend attributed to it in connection with the name of Hercules, one of whose pillars, guarding the western entrance to the Mediterranean, it was held to be.

The coming of the Moors to Spain, however, changed all this, and since then Gibraltar history has made up in variety and excitement for what it lacks in duration.

The reasons of its want of importance in earlier years, and of its prominence in later ones, are not, I think, far to seek.

The Rock of Gibraltar serves a double purpose; it acts as a stepping-stone between two continents and as a lock gate between two seas, and as such it has been subject to two distinct movements or

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