prompt surrender of the goëlette, and the terror of the Portuguese who offered me his diamonds.

I may add that, during all the time that I followed the trade of a corsair, my men had orders to respect the life, honour, and fortune of passengers-I was going to say, under pain of death; but I should have been wrong to have said that, since no one having infringed my orders, I never had any one to punish.

As soon as the first arrangements were made on board, we put the head towards Rio de la Plata; and to give an example of the respect in which I wished the life, liberty, and property of our prisoners to be held for the future, on arriving off the Isle of St. Catherine, a little above Cape Itapocoroya, I caused the yawl of the captured vessel to be lowered into the sea, and the passengers, with all that they possessed, to be lowered into it. I gave them provisions, and, making them a present of the yawl, I left them at liberty to go where they liked.

Five negroes, slaves on board the goëlette, and to whom I gave liberty, engaged themselves with me as sailors; after which we continued our route for Rio de la Plata.

We cast anchor at Maldonato, a state of the Eastern Republic of the Uruguay. We were extremely well received by the people, and even by the authorities of Maldonato, which appeared of excellent augury to us. Rossetti consequently set out tranquilly for Montevideo, in order to regulate our little affairs there-that is to say, sell part of our cargo, and make some money of it.

We remained at Maldonato-I mean, at the entrance of that magnificent river, which at its mouth measures thirty leagues across- -for eight days, which were passed in continual fêtes, but were near terminating in a tragical manner. Oribe, who, in his quality of chief of the Republic of Montevideo, did not recognise the other Republics, gave orders to the political chief of Maldonata to arrest me, and take possession of my goëlette. Fortunately the political chief of Mal

donato was a brave man, who instead of executing the order he had received, and which would not have been difficult, considering the little mistrust I entertained, caused me to be warned to quit my anchorage as quickly as possible, and to set out for my destination, if I had one.

I engaged to set out that same evening; but, in the first place, I had, on my part, a small account to settle. I had sold a merchant of Montevideo some bales of coffee, taken from our cargo, and some bijouteries belonging to my Austrian, to purchase provisions. Now, whether my purchaser was bad pay, or whether he had heard I was likely to be arrested, I don't know; but till that time I had found it impossible to get my money. As I was forced to leave before evening, I had no time to lose; and it was urgent for me to be paid before I quitted Maldonato, seeing that it would be much more difficult absent than present.

Consequently, towards nine o'clock in the evening, I ordered preparations to be made for sailing, and placing my pistols in my belt, I threw my cloak over my shoulders, and walked quietly towards the residence of my merchant. It was a magnificent moonlight night, so that I saw my man from a distance, enjoying the air at the door of his house. He also saw me, recognised me, and made me a sign with his hand to go back, indicating by that sign that I was incurring danger.

I pretended not to see his sign, but walking straight up to him, and placing a pistol to his breast

My money!" said I.

He wanted to enter into an explanation, but at the third repetition of the two words, "My money!" he desired me to come in, and counted down the two thousand palagons he owed me.

I replaced my pistol in my belt, took my bag on my back, and returned to the goëlette without having been the least in the world concerned. At eleven o'clock we raised our anchor to ascend the Plata.

CHAPTER IX.

LA PLATA.

AT daybreak, to my great astonishment, I found myself in the midst of the breakers of the Piédras-Negras ! How could I have placed myself in such a situation? I who had not slept a minute; I who had not ceased to keep my eyes fixed upon the coast; I who, during the night which had become dark after the setting of the sun, had not for an instant failed to consult the compass, and to direct our course according to its inspirations!

This was not the time to ask myself questions; the danger was immense. We had breakers both larboard and starboard, ahead and astern; the deck was literally covered with foam. I sprang upon the mainyard, ordering the men to luff on the larboard; whilst they were accomplishing this manœuvre, the wind carried away our fore-top-sail.

From the spot, however, upon which I stood, I dominated both ship and breakers, so that I could point out the direction the goëlette ought to take; she, on her part, as if she been animated and had known the danger she was in, became as docile to the helm as a horse is to the bridle; at length, after an hour, during which we were between life and death, and when I saw old sailors become pale, and the most incredulous pray, we found ourselves out of danger.

From the moment I could breathe freely, I was anxious to account for the causes which had driven me amongst these terrible rocks, so well known to navigators, so clearly marked upon the charts, and from which I thought myself three miles at the moment I found myself among them.

I consulted the compass; it still continued to diverge; if I had attended to it, I should have run the ship aground. But at length all was explained. At the moment I quitted the goëlette to go and demand my two thou

sand palagons of my coffee-dealer, I had given orders to bring up all the guns and sabres upon deck in case of attack. This order had been attended to, and the arms had been deposited in a cabin close to the binnacle. This mass of iron had attracted the needle. The arms were removed, and the compass resumed its normal direction.

We continued our course, and arrived at JesusMaria, which, from the other side of Montevideo, is nearly at the same distance as Maldonato. There, nothing fresh, if I except that provisions were short; we had not had time to lay them in before our departure. Now, according to orders given, there was no means of landing, and yet the hunger of a dozen fellows with good appetites must be satisfied.

I gave orders to luff, but without drawing off the coast. In the morning I discovered, at the distance of about four miles inland, a house which had the appearance of a farm. I ordered the anchor to be dropped as near the shore as possible, and as we had no boat, having given away mine, as I have said, to the people I had landed at the Isle of St. Catherine, I improvised a raft with a table and some casks, and armed with a gaff, I risked myself upon this newly-invented craft with a single sailor, bearing, like me, the name of Garibaldi, though no relation; his Christian name was Maurice.

The ship was moored across by two anchors, on account of the violence of the wind which blew from the pampas. There we were, then, launched amidst the breakers, not steering, but turning and dancing upon our table, at the risk of being overset every minute. At length, after performing miracles of balancing, we succeeded in reaching the beach; I left Maurice to guard our raft, and boldly ventured inland.

CHAPTER X.

ORIENTAL PLAINS.

of

THE spectacle which presented itself to my sight, and upon which my eyes fell for the first time, would require, to describe it worthily and completely, both the pen a poet and the pencil of an artist. I saw undulating before me the waves of a solidified sea, the immense horizons of the Oriental plains, so named because they are situated upon the eastern side of the river Uruguay, which throws itself into Rio de la Plata, in front of Buenos Ayres and above the Colonia. It was, I swear to you, a spectacle truly new for a man coming from the other side of the Atlantic, and particularly for an Italian, who is born and grows up in a land where it is rare to see an acre of ground without a house or some sort of work that has issued from the hand of man.

There, on the contrary, is nothing but the work of God; as it came from the hands of the Lord on the day of creation, such is it now. It is a vast, an immense, boundless prairie ; and its aspect, which presents that of a carpet of verdure and flowers, embossed here and there, only changes upon the banks of the river Arroga, where charming tufts of trees, of luxuriant foliage, rise, waving their graceful branches to the wind.

Horses, oxen, antelopes, ostriches are, for want of human creatures, the inhabitants of these immense solitudes, traversed only by the Gaucho, that centaur of the New World, as if to let all the troop of wild animals be reminded that God has given them a master. But this master, with what eye do horses, bulls, ostriches, and antelopes see him pass? By rivalling each other in protesting against his pretended domination the horse by his neighings, the bull by his roarings, the ostrich and the antelope by their flight.

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And this sight threw back my thoughts to the land where I was born; miserable land! where, when the Austrian who oppresses passes, men, those creatures