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III
Relieved by the precise instructions I had given -- that all my correspondence was to be remitted to the hotel -- I undertook my return. I stopped next to the pump and, after energetic efforts, succeeded in placating my thirst and wetting my head with two or three dashes of warm water. With errant steps I arrived at the station.
 In the yard there was an old Rickenbacker laden with the cages full of chickens. How much longer would I spend in that inferno, awaiting the hotel car?
In the lobby I found the stationmaster conversing with a man enveloped in a thick poncho. The stranger said, "Dr. Humberto Huberman?"
I nodded. The stationmaster told me, "We've already loaded your suitcases."
One can hardly believe the happiness those words produced in me. Without serious difficulty, I intercalated myself among the cages. We began the journey to Bosque del Mar.
The route, for the first five leagues, consisted of a succession of swamps; the advance of the admirable Rickenbacker was slow and fraught with hazard. I sought a glimpse of the sea, like a Greek of the Anabasis: but there was no freshening in the air which might announce its proximity. Around a drinking trough, a cluster of unmoving cattle thought to shelter itself in the weak vanes of shadow projected by a windmill. My traveling companions were unsettled in their cages. As the car came to a stop at the corral, one might have said that a haze of feathers, like pollen, was propagated all about, and an ephemeral olfactory sensation brought to my mind a happy episode of my childhood, my parents and I in my uncle's rookeries in Burzaco. Shall I confess that for some minutes I, in the midst of flapping wings and heat, successfully took refuge in the pristine vision of a boiled egg in a white porcelain cup?
At last we arrived at a chain of dunes. I espied in the distance a crystalline fringe. I hailed the sea -- Thalassa!. . . Thalassa! It was a mirage. Forty minutes later I caught sight of a violet blot. I cried inside: Epi oinopa ponton! I turned to the chauffeur. "This time I'm not wrong. There is the sea."
"It's purple flowers," the man replied.
Soon I felt that the potholes were ending. The driver told me, "We have to move quickly. The tide will rise in a few hours."
I looked around. We were advancing laboriously past some stakes, in the midst of an expanse of sand. Between the stakes to the right appeared, far off, the sea. I asked, "Then why are you going so slowly?"
"If a wheel gets out of the rut, we will be buried in the sand."
I did not want to think about what would happen if we encountered another automobile. I was too tired to worry. I did not even notice the oceanic cool. I managed to articulate one question -- "Is it much farther?"
"No," he answered. "Eight leagues."
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