scharged into river barges
by the paddle-wheeler. It was this verging upon a vision, unknown but
longed for, and this inevitable falling back to known fact, which
perhaps depressed me and made the time pass all too slowly here.

The rattle of the cranes, so often interrupted, was all the more welcome;
the news of progress began to assume a better look; the incidents of
life in dock, from the angry officiousness of the wharf manager, a crude
foreigner, to the arrival of passenger boats and the swarm of gay-coloured
families to and from them, became worth attention again. Food, so
interesting at sea, lately become a burden, was reinstated; boiled eggs
for instance were welcomed, after a regime of steaks, by the whole
saloon. The whole saloon--no; Bicker, the man about town, refused his with
a criticism, likening them to plasticine. With his put-and-take top,
the youthful-spirited chaplain came more often, and often expressed
his regret that we were soon to be away.

Orders were not yet forthcoming. It was feared, and often urged upon
me with reference to my late troubles, that the _Bonadventure_ would
be sent up the river to Rosario. I made a great mistake about Rosario
and other possible destinations up the river, their names suggesting
ancient Spanish romantic traditions to me: I mentioned my feelings to
the assembled saloon. All the romance there, it seemed, was hidden
behind a cloud of patriarchal mosquitoes.

The discharge of coal was at last over and done. The day following, Hosea
sent for me and told me that the ship would shift at two, and perhaps--for
all he knew--straight out to sea. I told him I should not be clinging to
the stones of Buenos Aires at that hour.

But it was not our fate to depart altogether that day. Instead of going
out into the open water, when at three the pilot and the tugs brought the
_Bonadventure_ out from her Stygian berth at Wilson's Wharf and down to
the outer port, we now turned into an arm of the docks called Riachuelo.
There, between a steel sailing-ship which gave no sign of life and a
great black mechanical ferry or transporter, and further--there was no
doubt about this--beside a guano works, we were tied up for a time as
yet undefined.

The change was, partly on account of the neighbouring industry,
"uncertain if for bale or balm." I felt that we might even miss the
lively sight of the passenger boats coming and going, and all their
gilded press of friends and acquaintances