Note 321 — Chapter X

This war, undertaken by a fool (Lopez) against enormous odds, served to show what a people even when in the wrong, and in a bad cause, can do when it believes itself to be fighting for national liberty. As a matter of fact, Paraguayan liberty was not threatened for an instant, and Lopez declared war against both Brazil and the Argentine Republic out of mere ambition to be a second Napoleon. His solitary qualifications for the character were that, like his prototype, he was fat and loved women. The war commenced in 1865 and finished in 1870, and left the country almost a desert. So lonely was it, that I have often in those days seen tigers calmly walk across a road in mid-day, and a shout or a pistol-shot but little quickened their movements.