"Let us see, let us see," said the gentleman, moved to pity, and opening the door; "come inside a moment; let us see if anything can be done." He sat down, gave the boy a seat, and made him tell his story, listened to it very attentively, meditated a little, then said resolutely, "You have no money, have you?" "I still have some, a little," answered Marco. The gentleman reflected for five minutes more; then seated himself at a desk, wrote a letter, sealed it, and handing it to the boy, he said to him: "Listen to me, little Italian. Take this letter to Boca.

That is a little city which is half Genoese, and lies two hours' journey from here. Any one will be able to show you the road. Go there and find the gentleman to whom this letter is addressed, and whom every one knows. Carry the letter to him. He will send you off to the town of Rosario to-morrow, and will recommend you to some one there, who will think out a way of enabling you to pursue your journey to Cordova, where you will find the Mequinez family and your mother. In the meanwhile, take this." And he placed in his hand a few lire. "Go, and keep up your courage; you will find fellow-countrymen of yours in every direction, and you will not be deserted. Adios!" The boy said, "Thanks," without finding any other words to express himself, went out with his bag, and having taken leave of his little guide, he set out slowly in the direction of Boca, filled with sorrow and amazement, across that great and noisy town.

Everything that happened to him from that moment until the evening of that day ever afterwards lingered in his memory in a confused and uncertain form, like the wild vagaries of a person in a fever, so weary was he, so troubled, so despondent. And at nightfall on the following day, after having slept over night in a poor little chamber in a house in Boca, beside a harbor porter, after having passed nearly the whole of that day seated on a pile of beams, and, as in delirium, in sight of thousands of ships and boats and tugs, he found himself on the poop of a large sailing vessel loaded with fruit, which was setting out for the town of Rosario, managed by three robust Genoese, who were bronzed by the sun; and their voices and the dialect which they spoke put a little comfort into his heart once more.

They set out, and the voyage lasted three days and four nights, and it was a continual amazement to the little traveller. Three days and four nights on that wonderful river Paran? in comparison with which our great Po is but a rivulet; and the length of Italy quadrupled does not equal that of its course. The barge advanced slowly against this immeasurable mass of water. It threaded its way among long islands, once the haunts of serpents and tigers, covered with orange-trees and willows, like floating coppices; now they passed through narrow canals, from which it seemed as though they could never issue forth; now they sailed out on vast expanses of water, having the aspect of great tranquil lakes; then among islands again, through the intricate channels of an archipelago, amid enormous masses of vegetation. A profound silence reigned. For long stretches the shores and very vast and solitary waters produced the impression of an unknown stream, upon which this poor little sail was the first in all the world to venture itself.