own losses are great." It required very little
reasoning to show me that the least expensive course was the safest one
for me to adopt, and my merchant offering enough to pay the marketing, I
found it wisest not to disturb the cargo, but to lay up instead with it
in the vessel and await the reopening of the Brazilian ports. This I
did.

My merchant, Don Manuel, is said to be worth millions of _pesos_. The
foundation of his wealth was laid by peddling charcoal, carrying it at
first, to his credit be it said, on his back, and he was then a good
fellow. Many a hard bargain has he waged since, and is now a "Don,"
living in a $90,000 house. The Don doesn't peddle charcoal any more.

Moored at Rosario, waiting, waiting; but all of us well in body, and
myself finally less agitated in mind. My old friend, Don Manuel, seems
better also; he "may yet purge and live clean like a gentleman."

I found upon our return to Rosario that some of the old hands were
missing; laid low by the scourge, to make room for others, and some were
spared who would have been less lamented. Among all the ship-brokers
that I knew at Rosario, and I knew a great many, not one was taken away.
They all escaped, being, it was thought, epidemic-proof. There was my
broker, Don Christo Christiano--called by Don Manuel "El Sweaga" (the
Swede)--whom nothing could strike with penetrative force, except a
commission.

At last, April 9th, 1887, news came that the Brazilian ports were open.
Cholera had long since disappeared in Santa Fe and Buenos Aires. The
Brazilians had established their own beef-drying factories, and could
now afford to open their ports to competition. This made a great stir
among the ships. Crews were picked up here and there, out of the few
brothels that had not been pulled down during the cholera, and out of
the streets or from the fields. Some, too, came in from the bush. Mixed
among them were many that had been let out of the prisons all over the
country, so that the scourge should not be increased by over-crowded
jails. Of six who shipped with me, four had been so released from
prison, where they had been serving for murder or highway robbery; all
this I learned when it was too late. I shall have occasion before long
to speak of these again!

Well, we unmoored and dropped down the river a few miles the first day;
with this crew, the hardest looking set that ever put foot on a ship of
mine, and with a swarthy Greek pilot that would be ta