this solitary _estancia_. To do so a
name of evil augury and ill repute must needs be introduced--that of Dr
Francia, Dictator of Paraguay, who for more than a quarter of a century
ruled that fair land verily with a rod of iron. With this same
demon-like tyrant, and the same almost heavenly country, is associated
another name, and a reputation as unlike that of Jose Francia as
Hyperion to the Satyr, and which justice to a godlike humanity forbids
me to pass over in silence. I speak of Amade, or, as he is better
known, _Aime_ Bonpland--cognomen appropriate to this most estimable
man--known to all the world as the friend and fellow-traveller of
Humboldt; more still, his assistant and collaborates in those scientific
researches, as yet unequalled for truthfulness and extent--the
originator and discoverer of much of that learned lore, which, with
modesty unparalleled, he has allowed his more energetic and more
ambitious _compagnon de voyage_ to have credit for.

Though no name sounds more agreeably to my ears than that of Aime
Bonpland, I cannot here dwell upon it, nor write his biography, however
congenial the theme. Some one who reads this may find the task both
pleasant and profitable; for though his bones slumber obscurely on the
banks of the Parana, amidst the scenes so loved by him, his name will
one day have a higher niche in Fame's temple than it has hitherto held--
perhaps not much lower than that of Humboldt himself. I here introduce
it, with some incidents of his life, as affecting the first character
who figures in this my tale. But for Aime Bonpland, Ludwig Halberger
might never have sought a South American home. It was in following the
example of the French philosopher, of whom he had admiringly read, that
the Prussian naturalist made his way to the La Plata and up to Paraguay,
where Bonpland had preceded him. But first to give the adventures of
the latter in that picturesque land, of which a short account will
suffice; then afterwards to the incidents of my story.

Retiring from the busy world, of which he seems to have been somewhat
weary, Bonpland took up his residence on the banks of the Rio Parana;
not in Paraguayan territory, but that of the Argentine Republic, on the
opposite side of the river. There settled down, he did not give his
hours to idleness; nor yet altogether to his favourite pursuit, the
pleasant though somewhat profitless one of natural history. Instead, he
devoted himself to c