CHAPTER II

Several days passed, and my second pair of boots had been twice resoled
before Dona Isidora's schemes for advancing my fortunes began to take
form. Perhaps she was beginning to think us a burden on her somewhat
niggardly establishment; anyway, hearing that my preference was for
a country life, she gave me a letter containing half a dozen lines of
commendation addressed to the Mayordomo of a distant cattle-breeding
establishment, asking him to serve the writer by giving her
_nephew_--as she called me--employment of some kind on the
_estancia_. Probably she knew that this letter would really lead
to nothing, and gave it merely to get me away into the interior of the
country, so as to keep Paquita for an indefinite time to herself, for
she had become extremely attached to her beautiful niece. The
_estancia_ was on the borders of the Paysandu department, and not
less than two hundred miles from Montevideo. It was a long journey,
and I was advised not to attempt it without a _tropilla_, or troop
of horses. But when a native tells you that you cannot travel two
hundred miles without a dozen horses, he only means that you cannot
do the distance in two days; for it is hard for him to believe that
one may be satisfied with less than one hundred miles a day. I travelled
on one horse, and it therefore took me several days to accomplish my
journey. Before I reached my destination, called Estancia de la Virgin
de los Desamparados, I met with some adventures worth relating, and
began to feel as much at home with the _Orientales_ as I had long
been with the _Argentinos_.

Fortunately, after I left the town, a west wind continued blowing all
day, bringing with it many light, flying clouds to mitigate the sun,
so that I was able to cover a good number of leagues before the evening.