From Buenos Aires itself, what but the hastiest impression could I take away with me? Melancholy it was to me to find so little apparent survival of the town as it must have been in its first centuries. My last walk did not altogether revise my picture of bar-tobacconist-bar-tobacconist; of powdered Venuses, over-dressed Adonises; of shops without display, receding obscurely; of cinematograph theatres crudely decorated with notices of rank buckjumping “dramas”; of innumerable tramways, here, there and everywhere; of green sunny courtyards at the end of passages between dismal shuttered façades; of trees with drooping foliage before flat roofs with flimsy chimneys–mere drain-pipes–at the top of high white dead walls; of bonneted policemen with their hands on their swords; of boys teasing horses; of whizzing taxis, and dray-horses fighting for a start on the inimical cobbles; of pavements suitable for tight-rope walkers; of the power of money; of living for the present, or the day after to-morrow; of a straw-hat existence. But I must admit that my scantiest notions of a town refer in temper to the quality of its second-hand bookshops.
So then, the ship being under orders to leave at four, soon after five the port authorities held a sort of roll-call amidships, and the pilots and the tugs arrived. The port authorities consisted of a young officer who looked likely to trip himself up with his beautiful sword, a lanky humorist, with sergeant’s chevrons, at his heels, and one or two other attendants. Soon after these vigilants had gone down the ladder again, the Bonadventure began to move, and the bags of guano were a tyranny that is overpast. That channel into which I had been pleased to see the Bonadventure come I now watched her leave without remorse. The dredgers fall behind our course, the fishing-boats, and the perches of the sea-eagles. We met a breeze, surprisingly strong, which made even these slothful waters choppy. The sun went out in a colder sky, beyond the outlines of the great chimneys and transporters; and presently a line of dwindling lights, surmounted by one or two more conspicuous, stood for Buenos Aires. Meantime the wind blew hard and loud. When the first pilot went to make his way home, the tug coming up for him was flung against the sides of the ship two or three times, and he was obliged to jump from his swaying rope ladder, “judging the time.” We ran on, with many red and yellow lights flashing around our track. The taste of coal-dust, let alone the feel of it as a garment, made me wish the wind an early good night.
XVIII
There were differences of opinion about the precise distance between Buenos Aires and Bahia Blanca, in which it seemed the authority of the steward was not accepted. Travelling light, however, the Bonadventure seemed little concerned about fifty miles either way. A current assisted in this turn of speed.
It was enjoyable to be out of sight of land once more, in a morning coolness, with seagulls piping in our wake; although they were yellowish waters that were rolling by. The second pilot went down to the motor boat due to take him home; the blue peter was hauled down when he had gone; and we hurried south. A dove came by, alighted; presumably our course lay at no great distance from the coast: a sail, a smoke-trail here and there dappled the circling scene. The sailors and apprentices set to, cleaning the holds in preparation for a cargo of grain–a black job. Bucketful after bucketful was flung over the side, the wind playfully carrying off the murky clouds. I washed clothes at a safe distance.
It was at this time or near it that an addition to my daily course was made. So long as the Bonadventure was at sea, the ship’s officers received cocoa and sandwiches by way of supper. To this edible privilege I could not imagine that I had the slightest claim, nor in fact was I anxious to be elected; but when the steward out of his magnanimity conferred it upon me I naturally received it with thanks.
The cocoa indeed was not to be lightly considered when ten o’clock found me, as it mostly did, with Mead on his night watch. The first night after we had left the mouth of the Plate, his mind was full of one matter. Before we had been released from Wilson’s Wharf, acting on the advice of the vendor, he had bought a fifth share in a lottery ticket. With this qualification, he began to paint his future in all the colours of £1,166–his possible, or as he wished to be assured, his probable, harvest. A small schooner, in the enchanted atmosphere of his pipe, seemed already to own him master; she would trade for long years of prosperity in South Sea islands, where uncultivated fruits and beauties abound. While we agreed on the plan, the moon went down; multitudes of stars shone out, and meteors at moments ran down the sky. A broad glow to starboard revealed the nearness of the coast. Everything was most still, except perhaps Mead’s spirit. There might be some hitch. But no, he felt his luck was in; he was sure, something told him that he carried the winning number.
The day’s entries in my diary now began thus, or nearly: “Need I say it again–One mosquito, etc., but I killed him; then, one mosquito, etc.” The persistence of these self-satisfied hovering devils was puzzling, for the mornings dawned almost bitterly fresh, and the breeze was always awake. Its direction had now laid, during the night, a carpet of glittering coal-dust along the passage outside the door; and the day being Sunday, which should by all precedent be marked by an increased radiance in the outward as well as in the inward man, it was impossible to keep clean. For the inward man, I once again took refuge in Young’s Night Thoughts, which, despite the disapproval of Mr. Masefield’s Dauber, I will maintain to give room and verge enough to annotate, parody, wilfully miscomprehend, skip, doze, and indulge what trains of thought whether ethical, fanciful, or reminiscent.
A gentler air, a bluer sea, a sandy coast in view. There was something lyrical about the “dirty ship” as with the buoyancy of her cargoless holds she fleeted to the south. Mead, his future resplendent with £1,166 and its South Sea bubble, seemed to feel this rhythmical impulse. Every now and then, in his consultations, he would break forth into singing, but seldom more than a fragment at a time; now it was “Farewell and adieu to you, bright Spanish Ladies”–a grand old tune–now “Six men dancing on the dead man’s chest.” But most, he gave in honour of his native Australia a ballad of a monitory sort with a wild yet sweet refrain. It began