The Feilding Star. THURSDAY, FEB. 22, 1894. NEW AUSTRALIA.

Feilding Star, Volume XV, Issue 246, 22 February 1894, Page 2

The Feilding Star. THURSDAY, FEB. 22, 1894. NEW AUSTRALIA.

It would appear that the pioneers of the set lement in Paraguay have not gone the right way to work to make new homes for themselves. One of them has written to the effect that the whole affair is grossly mismanaged. The leader, Mr Lane, resides in the capital enjoying himself while many of the settlers are shoeless and in rags. The silly complaint is made, " There are no ploughs, and the men are digging the ground with spades." This indicates that the men are not all of the stamp required to open up new country, if so old a settled place can be so designated. " Another difficulty is that a number of native settlers have homesteads dotted all over the As soci;it ion's l;tnd." The worst feature is that the settlers are split into two parties, those antagonistic to Mr Lane being in the majority. In order that our readers may form some idea of the country, we quote the following from an account given by a gentleman who visited that part of the world about the year 1881 : " Paraguay is indeed a beautiful and voluptuous land ; a tropical forest cloven by broad fair rivers, with gardens fair as those of Hesperides intervening between the places of denser growth — a realm of lotus eaters — where the worn mariner may well be tempted, like the followers of Ulysses, to " wax weary of tho fields of barren foam," and cry — We will return no tuore ; our island home Is fur beyond the wave ; we will no longer roam There are indeed certain men who have come from Europe, and the lazy influence of tho soft beautiful climate has eaten into their souls, and they have stayed iv the '* land of streams " unwilling to roturo, settling on those gentle bills (hat slope to the broad Paraguay, aniid groves of orange trees, baninas, and papaws, with white roled silent Indian women serving them as slaves. Thero is no useful product of the tropics that is not to be found in Paraguay : sugar, coffee, yeiba, cavassa, tobacco, cotton and rice nil flourish on tho ferti!o red soil. It is a land where thero is unbelievable profusion and variety of game for all kinds of sportsmen. Of tho natives the author saj's many are the virtues of the poor, luave Para guayans ; they are hospitable, kindly, and honest, and though marriage is looked upon as au unnecessary prelude to two young people starting housekeeping together, they are remarkably constant iv their attachments. Tho girls aro savage heroines, faithful uuto death, soft as doves, ut ready to give up their lives for their mates. Pata^uay is for the most part an unknown country, even to its inhabitants. Id the forests is to be founl a wonderful variety of strange plants of ever}' kind, and the fcrcv, unhunted by man, abound in incredible numbers. Besides the j iguars, pumas, and deer, are tapirs, bears and hogs, while among serpents the deadly rattlesnakes are unpleasantly common. Huge vampire bats, too, flit about these wilds, and often prove worse than disagreeable to the traveller who camps out iv tho open. An interesting country, but it evideatly has its drawbacks which are fully appreciated, no doubt, by the " new chums " » ho have made, so far, such feeble attempts to form a " New Australia " thore.