I was well received by the consul, who, on proofs of my identity, immediately informed me that there was no French ship in the harbour, but that need not disquiet me, since my family not receiving news of me, and fearing that I might find myself in a difficult position from the want of money, if any misfortune had happened to me during my voyage, had written to all our agents in foreign countries, so that anyone to whom I might present myself might give me, on my demand, a sum adequate to supply my wants, and put me in a position, if I wished it, to try my fortune where chance should have conducted me. He concluded by adding that he held at my disposal the sum of 25,000f., and that he was ready to give it me immediately. I thanked him, and only accepted three hundred piastres. Some months passed, during which I made several agreeable acquaintances, and perfected myself in the study of the Spanish language. On several occasions the consul had done me the kindness to inform me that if I wished to leave for France, it would entirely depend upon my own will; but each time, under some pretext or other. I declined his offer, not being able to resolve to leave forever that land where I had suffered so much, and to which, for that very reason, I was attached. It is not with impunity that one has once tasted the wild pleasures of independent, nomadic life, and breathed in liberty the embalmed atmosphere of the high savannahs! I felt arising within me the passion of an adventurer, and suffered a secret horror at the thought of recommencing the colourless, circumscribed, and mean existence to which European civilisation would have bound me. And then I had bound myself in friendship with the gauchos. I made excursions with them into the pampas, slept in their ranches, hunted wild oxen and horses; all the poetry of the desert had taken possession of me, and I only wished to return into the savannahs and virgin forests, whatever might be the consequences to me of such a determination. In a word, one day, instead of embarking, as I had almost promised the consul, I went to him, and explained my intentions. The consul neither blamed me, nor gave me his approbation, but contented himself with shaking his head with the melancholy smile of a man in whom experience had killed all the illusions of youth, counted out to me the sum I asked of him, shook my hand with a sigh of regret and of pity, and, my business being at an end, I never saw him again. Four days later, mounted on an excellent wild horse, and accompanied by an Indian Guaranis, whom I had engaged to serve me as a guide, I left Buenos Aires with the intention of proceeding by land to Brazil. What business had I at Brazil? I myself did not know.