CHAPTER I. 
THE ARRIVAL AT POSADAS. 
For a day and a half we had made our way 
to Posadas, our railway carriage hitched to a 
fruit train, with its empty waggons which were 
to come back laden with oranges. Rain had 
come on soon after our start, and drove across 
the bare stretches of country. We were travel¬ 
ling north, getting further and further from 
the larger towns and their neighbourhood. 
Durham and Hereford cattle had given place 
to long-horned criollo stock, which stood knee 
deep in the swampy grass. The country 
stretched in a rolling line to the horizon, with 
bunches of trees at far intervals, which marked 
the whereabouts of small estancias. Birds 
became scarce, houses few and far between; and 
behind us the two shining rails ran to so fine a 
point that they became one. 
Sometimes we passed muddy rivers where the 
undergrowth along the banks was almost sub¬ 
merged, and the branches were littered with 
weeds and drift wood, and the debris brought 
by the yellow flood. A solitary heron fished 
B 
