about the landing-places;
their tiers of bright lamps at night rounding the bend between us and the
Roads. Perhaps the youths would no longer come by with their ship's
stores of macaroni, their jars of wine and panniers of onions and other
vegetables; nor the lighters, with their crews glaring in unwashed and
unchallenged independence in the whole world's face, and their yellow
mongrels scampering up and down the decks. The British Bar with the
Patagonian Indian and the giant but amicable cockroaches would be too far
away. However, we had the prospect of other monotonous distractions if
not those. For there were evidence of benefit; green swampy groves, a
sort of common with ragged horses at feed, and farther off the irregular
line of a landscape not unlike summer's horizon, gave the eye a
pleasant change. Football would now be possible on grass and not a
dust-heap. Sailor-town was on the opposite bank--a miscellany of ship's
chandlers' offices, gin palaces, untidy trams, and nondescript premises.

The gangway was lowered, the donkeyman was seen at once going ashore with
his mandoline, and we ourselves of the football persuasion followed with
the Football. We returned in time to see the steward's patience nominally
rewarded with a small yellow catfish, who showed the greatest wrath at
the trick which had been played on him, stiffening his poisonous fin and
actually barking.

The next morning, despite the odour of the guano, was a better one than
those in South Basin. For all its mud, the river looked cheerful; its
many small craft, as yellow as vermilion or as green as paint could make
them, lying quiet or passing by, caught the early sun. Even the dredgers'
barges, with their hue of Thiepval in November, showed the agreeable
activities of a new day, and breakfast.

But we were not to be long in Riachuelo. About midday it became known
that the _Bonadventure_ was to leave before evening for Bahia Blanca,
a three days' journey to the south. The further orders, what cargo was
to be received, and where it was to be delivered, were as yet withheld.
Phillips, the chief engineer, was disappointed at this departure--his son
would have been able to meet him in town within a day or two. To leave a
message for him in charge of the Mission, he proposed that I should go
with him in the afternoon, and that I was happy to do.

Meanwhile, awaiting dinner, we strolled along the waterside. It was
sultry and glaring. We passed shippin