APPENDIX. 411 



castor- oil bushes grew together in luxuriant interlacement, but 

 weeds were also thickly springing up in every direction. The 

 small plantation formed a marked contrast with the boundless 

 expanse of grass ; the grass grew close up to the ruined walls, even 

 within the door of the enclosure. No cattle were seen pasturing in 

 the immense plain ; only two ostriches did I notice as they trotted 

 across in the distance. Towards the south-east the horizon was 

 bounded by the forests of the Uruguay. 



In the evening Bonpland sent for me into his own dwelling, 

 which differed but little from the apartment already described, with 

 the exception of the bed 011 which the old man lay stretched. * It 

 is only about a month ago,' he remarked with a smile, ' that I had 

 a proper bed made for myself; I used before that to sleep anywhere, 

 just wherever I happened to lie down,' Again his thoughts 

 wandered feverishly through the various scenes of his long life. 

 While he was speaking two half-caste boys had entered, who were 

 brothers of the young girl. I wished him good-night, and made up 

 a bed for myself in the other hut. 



On my visiting him the next morning I found him very feeble ; 

 he had slept badly, and his wasted hands were burning with fever. 

 I begged that he would allow me to nurse him, and assist him in 

 the arrangement of any of his affairs, or conduct him to his friends 

 at Uruguayana ; but he declined all offers of assistance. Hopeless 

 as his condition appeared, he would not entertain the thought of 

 death ; he seemed to think that as he had been accustomed to put 

 off work all through life, so death might be postponed even at the 

 last. With a cheerful air he invited me to visit him again in the 

 course of ' a few years ; ' cattle would then be grazing in the fields, 

 the garden in beautiful order, and his dwelling completed and fitted 

 up with all necessary furniture. And as if to begin at once with 

 arrangements for the latter, he commissioned me to ask Heir 

 Kasten to send him a dozen knives and forks. He also gave me a 

 letter to Dr. Pujol, the Governor of Corrientes, requesting me to 

 post it at Restauracion. 



I begged him to give me his autograph as a remembrance, and he 

 wrote upon the back of an old letter: * Aime Bonpland.' 'That is 

 badly written,' he remarked, and wrote his name a second time, but 

 even less successfully. 'Ah,' he exclaimed, 'I have no longer the 

 power to write;' and it seemed to me as if a tear stole down his 

 cheek. Probably this was the last time that he ever wrote his 

 name. 



I had committed the imprudence on the previous evening of 

 acceding to the request of my guide, urged on an apparently reason- 

 able plea, to pay him the sum stipulated , for the journey. During 



