[Illustration:  Disc-Plough at Work.]

[Illustration:  Roadmaker and Railroad Builder.]

After everyone was assured that everyone else was safe, The Instigator came back from his Elysium, dreamily to finish the quotation of The Delineator and The Wild Man with “Said Gilpin, So am I,” and we all sat down to dinner, during which meal much merriment was caused by a difference of opinion between The Saint and her host on “dogs and species of dogs.”  Our enemies, the mosquitoes, were not so virulent as usual to-night, perhaps owing to the eucalyptus trees which are growing near the house; anyhow the party could venture to sit out after dinner on the verandah, which was already covered with beds for the accommodation of some of the party.  Thus, with an audience seated on chairs and beds, The Instigator talked of the plough and of its marvellous work in opening up hitherto unused tracts of land.  Want of labour has retarded development considerably, and until quite recently the northern camps were very much handicapped by the lack of labourers, and of men with brains to guide the labour.  Not only was there a deficiency of men, but often so many of the working bullocks were drafted off to the forests for timber haulage, that it left a sparseness of them for agricultural purposes.  The remedy, however, presented itself by the utilisation of the traction engine.  The breaking-up of fresh lands has always been the trouble facing the colonist.

In dry weather it is almost impossible to get the plough, drawn by horse or bullock, into the ground, and the drought so punishes the working animals that often when rain comes they are too weak for their work, and the colonist is unable to take the best advantage of the season, but mechanical ploughing obviates all this, and gives him the virgin land in such a condition that with the means at hand he is able to cultivate an area sufficiently large to ensure him success.

As we sat thus on the verandah in the moonlight, plans were made for the following day.  It was decided that a visit to the plough should occupy the morning, and a row on the lake, or ride round it, the afternoon, before proceeding to Lucero.  Fishing was spoken of, but we could not manage everything in the short time we had at our disposal at Los Moyes, so we found that probably the fishing would have to be given up.  Thus, in the security of the possession of clear consciences and mosquito nets, the party retired to rest.

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“M.L.” writes in answer to “O.G.” that the quotation he gives is from the writing of the Persian poet Sadi.  The quotation is quite correct, for though Sadi travelled for a great number of years in Europe, Asia, and Africa, he never travelled with the present Company in the Argentine, therefore he did not realise that the sleep of the bad could disturb the good.  Modern thought is inclined to differ from his views.