It was some months after.

The Juno lay ready to sail in the roads of Monte Video, where she had taken in hides as part of her home cargo.

The remainder, of coffee, she was to load at Rio, and in the meantime she had filled up with coals for that port.

She was lying in tropical costume, with awnings over the fore and after deck as a protection against the fierce rays of the sun; and the crew were going about in correspondingly airy clothing, with open shirts and tucked-up canvas trousers, brown and shiny with perspiration, and gasping after every breath.

It was the hottest season of the year.