A Vanished Arcadia | Page 3

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This etext was prepared by Alan R. Light ([email protected], formerly [email protected], etc.). To assure a high quality text, the original was typed in (manually) twice and electronically compared.

A Vanished Arcadia by R. B. Cunninghame Graham [Robert Bontine Cunninghame Graham. 1852-1936.]

[Note on text: Some obvious errors have been corrected. See Notes at end of file.]
[There were a number of accented characters in the original text, that cannot be conveniently included in ASCII. Some of these recur throughout the text, most notably: Guarani/ = Guarani; Parana/ = Parana; Alvar Nun~ez = Alvar Nunez; yerba mate/ = yerba mate; Guaycuru/ = Guaycuru; Guayra/ = Guayra; Diaz Tan~o = Diaz Tano; Paranapane/ = Paranapane; Jose/ = Jose; Chiriguana/s = Chiriguanas; Payagua/ = Payagua; Sen~ora = Senora; Iban~ez = Ibanez; and N~eenguiru/ = Neenguiru (the last u is sometimes given without an accent).
For a complete list of less common cases, see the end of this file. The accents have been stripped out of words that are used as part of an English phrase or sentence, but due to sheer volume, are marked in the text itself when part of a quotation, book title, or the like. The symbols employed are mostly obvious: (/) is acute, (\) is grave, (^) is circumflex, (~) is tilde, (") is umlaut, (,) [after c in the middle of a word] is cedilla; and (=) is breve.]

A Vanished Arcadia Being Some Account of the Jesuits in Paraguay 1607 to 1767
By R. B. Cunninghame Graham Author of "Mogreb-El-Acksa", etc.
With a Map [not included in ASCII text]

I DEDICATE THIS SHORT ACCOUNT OF
A VANISHED ARCADIA
TO THE AUTHOR OF
`SANTA TERESA, HER LIFE AND TIMES',
BEING CERTAIN THAT THE LIFE OF ALL SAINTS IS TO THEM AND US AN ARCADIA; UNKNOWN TO THEM AND TO US VANISHED WITH THEIR LIVES, YET STILL REMEMBERED, FITFULLY AS ARE THE JESUITS IN PARAGUAY, BY A FEW FAITHFUL, WHEN THE ANGELUS WAKES RECOLLECTION IN THE INDIANS' HEARTS. BUT, THEN, THE ANGELUS (EVEN OF MEMORY) IS TO THE MOST PART OF MANKIND ONLY A JANGLING OF AN ANTIQUATED BELL.

Preface

`Historicus nascitur, non fit.' I am painfully aware that neither my calling nor election in this matter are the least sure. Certain it is that in youth, when alone the historian or the horseman may be formed, I did little to fit myself for writing history. Wandering about the countries of which now I treat, I had almost as little object in my travels as a Gaucho of the outside `camps'. I never took a note on any subject under heaven, nor kept a diary, by means of which, my youth departed and the countries I once knew so well transmogrified, I could, sitting beside the fire, read and enjoy the sadness of revisiting, in my mind's eye, scenes that I now remember indistinctly as in a dream. I take it that he who keeps a journal of his doings, setting down day by day all that he does, with dates and names of places, their longitude and latitude duly recorded, makes for himself a meal of bitter-sweet; and that your truest dulcamara is to read with glasses the faded notes jotted down hurriedly in rain, in sun, in wind, in camps, by flooded rivers, and in the long and listless hours of heat -- in fact, to see again your life, as it were, acted for you in some camera obscura, with the chief actor changed. But diaries, unless they be mere records of bare facts, must of necessity, as in their nature they are autobiographical, be false guides; so that, perhaps, I in my carelessness was not quite so unwise as I have often thought myself. Although I made no notes of anything, caring most chiefly for the condition of my horse, yet when I think on them, pampa and cordillera, virgin forest, the `passes' of the rivers, approached by sandy paths, bordered by flowering and sweet-smelling trees, and most of all the deserted Jesuit Missions, half buried by the vigorous vegetation, and peopled but by a few white-clad Indians, rise up so clearly that, without the smallest faculty for dealing with that which I have undertaken, I am forced to write. Flowers, scents, the herds of horses, the ostriches, and the whole charm of that New World which those who saw it even a quarter of a century ago saw little altered from the remotest times, have remained clear and sharp,