only proceed with their dressing by fits and starts, and were more than once interrupted by attacks of their weary sea-sickness. However, their father stayed with them, helping and joking with them until they were ready to go up. Then, taking them by the arm, he assisted them up the stairs to the deck.
Miserable as the boys felt, they could not suppress an exclamation of admiration at the magnificent scene before them. The sea was tossed up in great masses of water, which, as they neared the ship, threatened to overwhelm them, but which, as she rose on their summits, passed harmlessly under her, hurling, however, tons of water upon her deck. The wind was still blowing fiercely, but a rift in the clouds above, through which the sun threw down a bright ray of light upon the tossing water, showed that the gale was breaking.
The excitement of the scene, the difficulty of keeping their feet, and the influence of the rushing wind, soon had the effect which their father predicted. The boys’ looks brightened, their courage returned; and although they still had an occasional relapse of sickness, they felt quite different beings, and would not have returned to the blank misery of their cabins upon any consideration. They were soon able to eat a piece of dry toast, which Mr. Hardy brought them up with a cup of tea at breakfast-time, and to enjoy a basin of soup at twelve o’clock, after which they pronounced themselves as cured.
By the afternoon the force of the wind had greatly abated, and although a heavy sea still ran, the motion of the vessel was perceptibly easier. The sun, too, shone out brightly and cheeringly, and Mr. Hardy was able to bring the little girls, who had not suffered so severely as their brothers, upon deck. Two more days of fine weather quite recruited all the party; and great was their enjoyment as the Barbadoes entered the Tagus, and, steaming between its picturesque banks and past Cintra, dropped her anchor off Lisbon.
As our object, however, is to relate the adventures of our young settlers upon the Pampas of La Plate, we must not delay to describe the pleasure they enjoyed in this their first experience in foreign lands, nor to give an account of their subsequent voyage across the Atlantic, or their admiration at the superb harbour of Rio. A few days’ further steaming and they arrived at the harbour of Buenos Ayres, where the two great rivers, the Uruguay and the Parana, unite to form the wide sheet of water called the River La Plate. It was night when the Barbadoes dropped her anchor, and it was not until the morning that they obtained their first view of their future home.
Very early were they astir, and as soon as it was broad daylight, all four of the young ones were up on deck. Their first exclamation was one of disappointment. The shores were perfectly flat, and, seen from the distance at which they were anchored, little except the spires of the churches and the roofs of a few of the more lofty houses could be seen. After the magnificent harbour of Rio, this flat, uninteresting coast was most disappointing.
‘What a distance we are anchored from the shore!’ Hubert said, when they had recovered a little from their first feeling. ‘It must be three or four miles off.’
‘Not so much as that, Hubert,’ Maud, who was just a little fond of contradicting, said; ‘not more than two miles, I should think.’
Hubert stuck to his opinion; and as the captain came on deck they referred the matter to him.
‘The distance of objects across water is very deceiving,’ he said. ‘It is from eight to nine miles to those buildings you see.’
Maud looked rather crestfallen, and Charley asked, ‘Why do we anchor such a long way off, captain?’
‘Because the shore is so flat that there is no water for us to get in any closer. In a couple of hours you will see boats coming out to fetch you in; and unless it happens to be high tide, even these cannot get to the beach, and you will have to land in carts.’
‘In carts, Captain Trevor?’ they all repeated; ‘that will be a strange way of landing.’
‘Yes, it is,’ the captain answered. ‘I think that we can safely say that the Argentine Republic is the only country in the world where the only way to land at its chief city is in a cart.’
The captain’s boat was by this time lowered, and he at once started for shore with his papers. Soon after ten o’clock he returned, followed by a number of boats. He brought also a letter to Mr. Hardy from an old friend who had been settled for some years near Buenos Ayres, and whose advice had decided him to fix upon that country as the scene of his labours. It contained a warm welcome, and a hearty congratulation upon their safe arrival. This letter had been written two or three days previously, and had been left at the office of the steamship company. It said, however, that the writer would hear of the arrival of the steamer, and would have everything in readiness to take them out to his place upon their landing.
Mr. Hardy had been in frequent communication with his friend from the time that he had determined to emigrate, and Mr. Thompson’s letters had contained the warmest assurance of a welcome, and an invitation to make his house their home until they had one of their own to go into; and now this kind letter, coming off so instantly after their arrival, cheered them all much, and made them feel less strange and to some extent at home in the new country at once.
CHAPTER III.
A NEW LIFE
TIDE was fortunately high, and the boat containing the Hardys and the lighter portion of their luggage was able to get up to the landing place without the carts being called into use. As they approached the land they were hailed in a hearty voice, and greetings were exchanged between Mr. Hardy and his friend Mr. Thompson – a sunburnt-looking man with a great beard – in a Panama hat and in a suit of spotless white.
‘Why, Mrs. Hardy,’ he said as they landed, ‘you hardly look a day older than you did when I last saw you – let me see – fourteen years ago, just as this big fellow was beginning to walk. And now, if you please, we will be off as soon as we can, for my estancia is fifteen miles away. I have made the best arrangements I could for getting out; but roads are not a strong point in this country, and we seldom trust ourselves in wheeled vehicles far out of the town. You told me in your letters, Hardy, that the young people could all ride. I have horses in any number, and have got in two very quiet ones, with side-saddles, which I borrowed from some neighbours for your girls; but if they prefer it, they can ride in the trap with Mrs. Hardy.’
‘Oh no, please,’ Maud said; ‘I had much rather ride.’
Ethel said nothing, and her mamma saw that she would rather go with her. Accordingly, Mrs. Hardy, Ethel, Sarah, and some of the lighter bags were packed into a light carriage, Mr. Thompson himself taking the reins, as he said he could not trust them to any one but himself. Mr. Hardy, the boys, and Maud mounted the horses prepared for them, and two of Mr. Thompson’s men stowed the heavier trunks into a bullock-cart, which was to start at once, but which would not reach the estancia until late at night.
As the party rode through the town, they were struck with the narrowness and straightness of the streets, and at the generally European look of everything; and Mr. Thompson told them that nearly half the population of Buenos Ayres are European. The number of people upon horseback also surprised our young travellers; but horses cost only thirty shillings or two pounds, and grass is so abundant that the expense of their food is next to nothing; consequently every one rides, – even shepherds look after their sheep on horseback. The horses seemed very quiet, for in front of most of the offices the horses of the merchants could be seen fastened by a head rope to a ring, grooms not being considered a necessity.
Once out the town, the riding horses broke into a canter; for the road was so good that the horses in the light carriage were able to go along at full speed. As they proceeded, they passed many houses of the rich merchants of the place, and all were charmed with the luxuriance and beauty of the gardens. Orange and lemon trees scented the air with their
