Ships were lost during these dark voyages, and said to have had their crews killed. This is a myth. A ship may have lost its master, his wife, some of his crew and children, but not a large portion of them. As a result of this myth, there were no records of these lost ships and these missing children." "Not in this part of the sea at least," said Vargas. "Not until the discovery of the shipwrecks of Cartagena. But to come back to your other question. The most significant is probably the voyage of Hjalmar Prokoudine. These were recorded voyages, recorded as a matter of fact by the pilot of the _Konstanz,_ on which the master of the vessel of a Russian czar was a cokoo named Prokoudine. The pilot's journal contains details on these historical journeys. The vessel carrying the Russian princess and her entourage sailed around the Cape. It passed through the straits of the _Chagres_ and the _Gretchen,_ the _Nightingale,_ and the _Humboldt._ It landed at Portobello. It reached Buenos Aires, in Patagonia, in the year 1719." "Where did it originate?" "Patagonia." "I don't think I have the right translation for that word," said Vargas. "It is a place beyond Argentina. It's in the American continent." "Then I've understood you correctly," said Vargas. "At any rate, let us get back to history. I'm almost finished. When the Russian ships reached these parts, they were already in the hands of the Spaniards. By this time, Buenos Aires had already been founded. By this time, Europeans and Englishmen had made visits to this region. A few years later, in the 1730s, Buenos Aires was a town of 1,000. And then came the first Englishmen." "The first Englishmen?" said Vargas. "These were buccaneers, pirates, privateers. In the eighteenth century, the English made frequent voyages, especially to the south, in order to capture ships and goods. In the midst of the buccaneers' visits, a small troop of Englishmen came across the ocean. They also built a fortress on the site of Buenos Aires. As long as the buccaneers came to port here, everything went well. But when the sea was closed and the buccaneers were gone, the inhabitants of the city attacked the fortress of Buenos Aires. The buccaneers defended themselves to the best of their ability. They had to rebuild the city that had been destroyed, plant wheat and corn. And the city of Buenos Aires flourished with such vigor that its history remains inscribed in the history books as 'the time of the English' that came after the buccaneers." Vargas fell silent. "But that's still not enough," he said. "They were still in the background of the struggle for independence," I said. "The struggles in which Argentina is just now engaged were already played out between the European powers and the buccaneers." "So the buccaneers won?" "More or less. The buccaneers were defeated by the English, but not without having taken on a part of European culture that was more than they knew. Those who stayed on shore with the English had already been educated with that European style, the Europeans' learning and ways of thinking." "How can you say that?" "We know it," I said. "In the beginning, we were like the Indians," said Vargas. "What do you mean?" "I mean that we didn't know Europe at all. We were still living like Indians. When we began to open up to Europe, there was something backward about it. I don't know how to explain it, but to the Indians, Europe seemed like a backward place. As if the first white people who came to this area had brought just a handful of seeds. Europe took the seeds that were planted in the country and brought them back as something wonderful and strong, but it didn't do the same to the Indians. I don't know how to explain it, but the first white people who came to this country were more like savages than civilized people." "And they weren't really civilized?" "Well, they _had_ to be civilized. The whites had to learn to walk the first time around, so they couldn't have brought any civilization with them." "What are you talking about?" "I'm talking about history. There's something that you haven't mentioned, Señor Garay." "What?" "On this side of the ocean, we were beaten and conquered by the whites, but they were also beaten and conquered by the blacks." "Excuse me?" "There's a word that isn't explained in your history books. That's the name of this country's first colony. It is not mentioned by the author who told you what I'm telling you now. The name of the colony is Guinea." I said nothing. "I just said the name. That's all. I won't say anything more about it. What happens is that the blacks were defeated by the whites. But it was after the whites had been defeated by the blacks that the Portuguese came to take over and set up the first colony in this country, in a place where at that time white people didn't want to go." "What are you talking about?" "That is why I'm telling you about the colony of Guinea. There was a time when there were no Europeans in the Americas, and you didn't know a thing about them. They didn't exist. Today they're a familiar figure. But back then, we didn't know anything about them. We didn't even see them as a special people." "What do you mean?" "We could touch them. But we didn't think we could see them. They were a kind of spirit. The things they carried with them were a kind of spirit. To us, they were like the _cimarrones_ that came into the towns. They were like the ghosts that appeared at times to frighten people. Just imagine, if you'd been like the man I described to you, the one who believed the _cimarrones_ were ghosts, you would have fled from me." "And what's that got to do with our country's history?" I asked. "In my country, history was told to us by our grandparents," Vargas said. "I told you about them a little earlier. They were people who made great sacrifices. When the Portuguese arrived in this country, there were people here who knew what part of the world they had come from. We didn't know anything about that. There were also some people here who knew something about what the whites had to go through before they could settle here in this part of the world. But what about those who were conquered and defeated by the Europeans? What about those who were subdued? They were the people who knew this history. They were the people who knew what had happened to the Indians. The word 'Indian' is also a part of your history. And even those who didn't know anything about it, even those who didn't want to know anything, still knew what was going on. The Indians they were using were the ones who came along with the colonial expedition. But even those who were beaten and enslaved by the blacks were able to tell the story of the blacks' victory over the whites. Even those who had nothing left to say about it, the survivors of the defeated and the defeated were still able to talk about it. They didn't talk about the people who had been beaten. They talked about the people who had been victorious. They still talk about the whites who beat the blacks." "What are you talking about?" "You're speaking in the third person, just like my grandfather used to do. One day he came to visit me. He was a black man from the town of Yapeyu. He had brought an ox from his farm in Africa. The ox was a very good ox. It's not easy to catch up with an ox like that, though. No one knows that more than I do. Every day, with all his strength, he pulled the plow with the ox. The plow always started at the same point in the morning. It was always dragging something up, always bringing something in. Every day, he was carrying this load into the past. He told me he was the man who killed the biggest part of the _cimarrones._ For him, being a black man meant being a _cimarrón_ killer. He told me that there were no slaves in his family. His wife was a whore. The two children he had were not his own but his brothers'. Every day he had to bury the dead, burying them with his oxen. He was the man who was taking their place on the earth. The man who was a survivor of the _cimarrones._ I'm trying to tell you about it. It isn't easy to understand how to talk about it. It is not easy. I know it was like that. I told you that I was the only one left alive in my town. I didn't know a soul there. I don't know