The excitement of the scene, the difficulty of keeping their feet, and the influence of the rushing wind, soon had the effect which their father predicted. The boys' looks brightened, their courage returned; and although they still had an occasional relapse of sickness, they felt quite different beings, and would not have returned to the blank misery of their cabins upon any consideration. They were soon able to eat a piece of dry toast, which Mr. Hardy brought them up with a cup of tea at breakfast-time, and to enjoy a basin of soup at twelve o'clock, after which they pronounced themselves as cured. By the afternoon the force of the wind had greatly abated, and although a heavy sea still ran, the motion of the vessel was perceptibly easier. The sun, too, shone out brightly and cheeringly, and Mr. Hardy was able to bring the little girls, who had not suffered so severely as their brothers, upon deck. Two more days of fine weather quite recruited all the party; and great was their enjoyment as the _Barbadoes_ entered the Tagus, and, steaming between its picturesque banks and past Cintra, dropped her anchor off Lisbon. As our object, however, is to relate the adventures of our young settlers upon the Pampas of La Plate, we must not delay to describe the pleasure they enjoyed in this their first experience in foreign lands, nor to give an account of their subsequent voyage across the Atlantic, or their admiration at the superb harbour of Rio. A few days' further steaming and they arrived at the harbour of Buenos Ayres, where the two great rivers, the Uruguay and the Parana, unite to form the wide sheet of water called the River La Plate. It was night when the _Barbadoes_ dropped her anchor, and it was not until the morning that they obtained their first view of their future home. Very early were they astir, and as soon as it was broad daylight, all four of the young ones were up on deck. Their first exclamation was one of disappointment. The shores were perfectly flat, and, seen from the distance at which they were anchored, little except the spires of the churches and the roofs of a few of the more lofty houses could be seen. After the magnificent harbour of Rio, this flat, uninteresting coast was most disappointing. 'What a distance we are anchored from the shore!' Hubert said, when they had recovered a little from their first feeling. 'It must be three or four miles off.' 'Not so much as that, Hubert,' Maud, who was just a little fond of contradicting, said; 'not more than two miles, I should think.' Hubert stuck to his opinion; and as the captain came on deck they referred the matter to him. 'The distance of objects across water is very deceiving,' he said. 'It is from eight to nine miles to those buildings you see.' Maud looked rather crestfallen, and Charley asked, 'Why do we anchor such a long way off, captain?'