at nightfall on the following
day, after having slept over night in a poor little chamber in a house
in Boca, beside a harbor porter, after having passed nearly the whole of
that day seated on a pile of beams, and, as in delirium, in sight of
thousands of ships and boats and tugs, he found himself on the poop of a
large sailing vessel, loaded with fruit, which was setting out for the
town of Rosario, managed by three robust Genoese, who were bronzed by
the sun; and their voices and the dialect which they spoke put a little
comfort into his heart once more.

They set out, and the voyage lasted three days and four nights, and it
was a continual amazement to the little traveller. Three days and four
nights on that wonderful river Parana, in comparison with which our
great Po is but a rivulet; and the length of Italy quadrupled does not
equal that of its course. The barge advanced slowly against this
immeasurable mass of water. It threaded its way among long islands, once
the haunts of serpents and tigers, covered with orange-trees and
willows, like floating coppices; now they passed through narrow canals,
from which it seemed as though they could never issue forth; now they
sailed out on vast expanses of water, having the aspect of great
tranquil lakes; then among islands again, through the intricate channels
of an archipelago, amid enormous masses of vegetation. A profound
silence reigned. For long stretches the shores and very vast and
solitary waters produced the impression of an unknown stream, upon which
this poor little sail was the first in all the world to venture itself.
The further they advanced, the more this monstrous river dismayed him.
He imagined that his mother was at its source, and that their navigation
must last for years. Twice a day he ate a little bread and salted meat
with the boatmen, who, perceiving that he was sad, never addressed a
word to him. At night he slept on deck and woke every little while with
a start, astounded by the limpid light of the moon, which silvered the
immense expanse of water and the distant shores; and then his heart sank
within him. "Cordova!" He repeated that name, "Cordova!" like the name
of one of those mysterious cities of which he had heard in fables. But
then he thought, "My mother passed this spot; she saw these islands,
these shores;" and then these places upon which the glance of his mother
had fallen no longer seemed strange and solitary to him. At night one of
th