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Writing Type: Letter
Letter describing the difficulties and dangers of her journey into exile.
Keywords: Bianquet de Méndez, exile, transport, hardship, Dr. Francia
Archive: University of Warwick Library
Location Details: Translated by William Parish Roberston and included in his Letters on Paraguay, Vol 3, pp.53-60.
Text: p.53
Curuguatí, 3rd February, 1816,
Would you believe, my dear friend, that it was only after a journey of four months and twenty days that we arrived at this our ultimate place of banishment? Such is the fact; and, although I scarcely know in what colours I am to depict to you the miseries we have endured since we left Assumption, I must endeavour to sketch to you some of the leading and lamentable events of our journey.
We were long detained after we left the San José by the want of a conductor,* and we had to
(* A carrier with the requisite number of waggons drawn by bullocks for a journey overland.)
(p.54) put up with every imaginable wretchedness, in the mean time at the miserable port of Quarepotí. The smiling valleys, the shady groves, the brawling brooks, the green sward, and the pure air to which we had been accustomed were exchanged for the unhealthy morass, and the stagnant pool. Idleness and squalid poverty sat at the door of each of the dozen mud hovels which are dignified, as a whole, with the title of I Villa.' The air and the earth swarmed with every insect hostile to man, while money, to provide even the necessaries of life, was here of no avail.
During our detention at Quarepotí our poor negro, Cosme, was drowned, while bathing in the Paraguay. You know what a faithful creature he was, and what was the strength of his affection for all the family; so you may imagine how sincerely we grieved over his loss.
On the 24th of November the conductor, at length, arrived with his waggons, and that same day we loaded and despatched them all save one, which we reserved as our family carriage, and which we detained till the following morning. We expected by the evening to overtake the (p.55) main body. We journeyed over an open but swampy country till six in the evening, when we entered a dark forest. Here the road became so imp impassable that, ere we had proceeded fifty yards, down came the crazy cart, and landed us all in a bed, not of roses, but of thorns. We were a good deal frightened, though not at all hurt; but our principal anxiety arose from our being at some distance from any house where we could take shelter for the night. We walked a league on foot through a deep and gloomy wood, Mendez, Antonio, and a peon carrying the children (already tired with a long day's, harassing journey) nearly all the way. I thought we should never get a sight of the hovel of which we were in search, and when we came to it at last, I hailed it as joyfully as if we had come to a palace. Our beds were ricketty hide stretchers, without mattress of any kind; we slept in the clothes which we wore; we were tormented by venomous insects; but we bad escaped the tigers, and were safe once more in the dwelling of man.
Next morning, at dawn, Mendez went back to have our cart repaired, and as he returned (p.56) once more to us in the forenoon, his horse at some distance from the cottage suddenly took fright ; it reared, plunged, and became altogether frantic; it flew off at last like lightning, stumbled fell; and Mendez being thrown with great impetuosity to the ground, his right leg was broken in two places.
I still tremble as often as I call to mind the events of that frightful day. Oh! the agony of bringing the sufferer from where he lay to the wretched but where we were now to take up our abode. I was almost insensible to every thing which passed around me. I could only weep, and implore the aid of Heaven in this my hour of greatest need and distress. On man I could not call for help, for I was in a desert, where no human aid was at hand.
With a heart brim full of sorrow, then, but placing my reliance on the mercy of God, I bad Mendez brought to the cottage; and there, having not a soul near me who had the slightest idea of the mode of treating such a case, I myself, as I best could, set the bones, and bandaged the fractured limb. I knew not what to do for the best. I immediately, however, despatched a courier to (p.57) Assumption with a letter for Dr. Parlett, begging him to send me specific instructions bow to proceed: I received them at the end of. six clays, and by following them closely, my patient began gradually, though very slowly, to mend.
We were pent up for nearly two months in one little close apartment, in which there was scarcely standing room for us all. Mendez suffered greatly from the pain of his fractures, and long confinement to a miserable bed in so miserable a place. I did all I could to alleviate his sufferings, and I must say he very manfully bore up against them.
By the 20th of January we ordered our carts once more, for, though still not entirely well, Mendez was able to ride on horseback, and we were most anxious to get to our journey's end. He cannot even yet put his foot to the ground, and he only moves along on crutches. Ah! My friend, what a difference in our fate in the course
of a few fleeting months ! In that short space we have exchanged health, happiness, and prosperity, for poverty, banishment, and every privation of life; my husband, too, I fear, will never perfectly recover the use of his limb. Yet have I (p.58) great cause to be thankful to a Divine Providence which has spared his life, and vouchsafed to me a spirit of conformity to bear up against my heavy trials.
On the 22nd we left Tacurubì (the place of Mendez's misfortune) ; arrived in three days at San Estanislao, one of the Indian reductions, where we were kindly received and treated by the Administrador; and on the 28th we resumed our journey.
Never, even in South America, did you see such roads as we bad to travel. Our unwieldy vehicle, crazing and creaking, now jolting over huge trunks of trees, now buried in a swamp, or anon stuck fast in a bog, accomplished two leagues in three days! Mendez, perceiving that at such a rate we stood a chance of never seeing Curuguatí at all, sent back to the town for four mules to carry us forward, and the following day, accordingly, we separated from the carts. At the end of three days we got to this place; but indeed, indeed, I thought I should have died on the road. The heat, you have felt a January sun in Paraguay, was truly terrific. Mendez and I had each one of our children before us on (p.59) our mules, and how these little ones bore up against the burning rays of the sun, and the fatigue of the mules' pace, I really know not.
We have been here two days. Why should I describe a place which, alas ! is so well known to you by report? Yet we have already experienced the utmost kindness, at the hands of all the poor but hospitable and simple people of Curuguatí. There are many here you know similarly situated to ourselves; among others, we have found Loisaga, who is acting the part of a father to us.
I have here only given you a sketch of events since we left Assumption; but when we meet we have many interesting particulars to recount to you. Louisa and her little brothers beg their kind remembrances to you. Mendez writes to you, and be will tell You how often we recall to mind and talk over the pleasant times of our Assumption tertulia. We still laugh at the puns and the rhymes which we all attempted, and at the fine words with which my dear and worthy friend, Doña Juanita Gomez, so often puzzled us. She writes to me very regularly.
We are anxious to bear something of you, (p.60) as well as of your brother Don Juan, and of Don Juan Postelfé* (pray don't laugh, you know how impossible it is to write his name). Do let us bear from you.
Ever your faithful friend,
JUANA BIANQUET DE MENDEZ.
*Postlethwaite
School of Modern Languages and Cultures
Trent Building, University Park
Nottingham, NG7 2RD
telephone: +44 (0)115 951 5655
email: Catherine.davies@nottingham.ac.uk