e boatmen sang. That voice reminded him of his mother's songs, when
she had lulled him to sleep as a little child. On the last night, when
he heard that song, he sobbed. The boatman interrupted his song. Then he
cried, "Courage, courage, my son! What the deuce! A Genoese crying
because he is far from home! The Genoese make the circuit of the world,
glorious and triumphant!"

And at these words he shook himself, he heard the voice of the Genoese
blood, and he raised his head aloft with pride, dashing his fist down on
the rudder. "Well, yes," he said to himself; "and if I am also obliged
to travel for years and years to come, all over the world, and to
traverse hundreds of miles on foot, I will go on until I find my mother,
were I to arrive in a dying condition, and fall dead at her feet! If
only I can see her once again! Courage!" And with this frame of mind he
arrived at daybreak, on a cool and rosy morning, in front of the city of
Rosario, situated on the high bank of the Parana, where the beflagged
yards of a hundred vessels of every land were mirrored in the waves.

Shortly after landing, he went to the town, bag in hand, to seek an
Argentine gentleman for whom his protector in Boca had intrusted him
with a visiting-card, with a few words of recommendation. On entering
Rosario, it seemed to him that he was coming into a city with which he
was already familiar. There were the straight, interminable streets,
bordered with low white houses, traversed in all directions above the
roofs by great bundles of telegraph and telephone wires, which looked
like enormous spiders' webs; and a great confusion of people, of horses,
and of vehicles. His head grew confused; he almost thought that he had
got back to Buenos Ayres, and must hunt up his cousin once more. He
wandered about for nearly an hour, making one turn after another, and
seeming always to come back to the same street; and by dint of
inquiring, he found the house of his new protector. He pulled the bell.
There came to the door a big, light-haired, gruff man, who had the air
of a steward, and who demanded awkwardly, with a foreign accent:--

"What do you want?"

The boy mentioned the name of his patron.

"The master has gone away," replied the steward; "he set out yesterday
afternoon for Buenos Ayres, with his whole family."

The boy was left speechless. Then he stammered, "But I--I have no one
here! I am alone!" and he offered the card.

The steward took it, rea