The Birmingham age-herald., 1915-07-18
A TRIP ACROSS PARAGUAY BY RAIL

painted bright red. As we come closer we find that they are made of poles chinked with mud Red Is the color of the best lands of Paraguay, and the contrast between the red son and the velvet gray of the thatch is wonderful ly beautiful. In some respects the country houses make me think of those of Japan.
 striking feature of the country Is the orange tree. It Is to be seen In groves near every village of matched huts. There are orange trees in the thickets, and the great golden balls shine out of some of the trees as you ride through the woods. Paraguay is about the only place upon earth that the orange grows Wild. The birds carry the seeds and the trees are to be found everywhere.
 And such oranges. They are as sweet as honey and loaded with juice. They are not especially large and so far I have found none without seeds. They have thin skin of bright yellow, which contains so much oil that you can squeeze piece of the peeling and little bubbles well come out on the surface You can take match and light these bubbles
 There are oranges for sale at all of the stations. Bare footed women bring them to the car windows in great bas- kets which rest on their heads. Almost anywhere. you can get all you can eat for the asking. I have often had 10 for cent At one of the railroad sta tions l offered medic, worth about half of one of our cents, to a peddlcr, saying in my gibberish Spanish, "Quan- tos DOT un medic, senorito?"
 "Ocho." (eight) was the reply of the damsel as she grpped her cigar be- tween her ivory teeth and held out two hands full of the sweet golden balls. The oranges were fresh from the trees they made me think of Los Angeles
 It Is estimated that 6o,0O0, 900 oranges are annually shipped down the Paraguay river to Buenos Aires. In the future there will be fruit trains which will carry the oranges there by rail. Today one of the great sights of the country is the mountains of oranges on the shores of the Paraguay, with hundreds of Paraguay girls taking them on the steamers. The oranges are brought to the river in carts each of which holds about 5000 oranges The fruit is thrown into the carts loosely, like so many potatoes, and it is dumped out on the piles by raising the carts, just as we dump dirt in repairing the roads,
 The oranges are taken on board the steamers in baskets of the shape of a bread bowl. woman will fill her basket, raise 1t to the head, and walk with 1t over the gansway to the steamer. She may not touch her burden until she un- loads 1t; and the shaking of the blanks and the breeze from the river do not dis turb her. The oranges are piled up on the decks of the vessels. A wire netting is stretched around the outside like a fence. and you may have 10 or 12 feet of oranges rising above the floor of the deck.
 l am surprised at the beauty of Para quay. Much of the country Is like great English park, with groves scat tered here and there through beautiful meadows. The only difference is the palm tree, which is to be seen every where waving It's fan-like leaves in the air. The most of the lands are held in large tracts. There are but few fences, and you ride on and on over plains cov- cred with grass, seeing hills here and there in the distance. The landscape is much what that of Illinois must have been before it was settled. The whole country seems to be natural park, slight ly rolling, with vast expenses of pasture that reach on and on to the horizon, where they are lost in the woods. There is but little cultivation. You go for miles without seeing a patch of grain or plowed field. The country seems to be almost all pasture and woods, much of which is the same now as when owned by the Indians before South America was discovered.
 Almost all the land along the railroad Is owned by some one or other. A great part of 1t is in large holdings and not