 Part 1 Chapter 7 of 800 Leagues on the Amazon this is a LibriVox recording all LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org 800 Leagues on the Amazon by Jules Verne Part 1 The Giant Raft Chapter 7 Following Eliana It was a Sunday the 26th of May and the young people had made up their minds to take a holiday. The weather was splendid, the heat being tempered by the refreshing breezes which blew from off the Cordilleras and everything invited them out for an excursion into the country. Benito and Manuel had offered to accompany Migna through the thick woods which bordered the right bank of the Amazon opposite the Fesenda. It was, in a manner, a farewell visit to the charming environs of Iquitos. The young men went equipped for the chase, but as sportsmen who had no intention of going far from their companions in pursuit of any game. Manuel could be trusted for that, and the girls, for Lina could not leave her mistress, went prepared for a walk, an excursion of two or three leagues being not too long to frighten them. Neither Joan Garau nor Iquita had time to go with them. For one reason the plan of the Jangada was not yet complete, and it was necessary that its construction should not be interrupted for a day, and another was that Iquita and Saibel, well seconded as they were by the domestics of the Fesenda, had not an hour to lose. Migna had accepted the offer with much pleasure, and so, after breakfast on the day we speak of, at about eleven o'clock, the two young men and the two girls met on the bank at the angle where the two streams joined. One of the blacks went with them. They all embarked on one of the Ubas used in the service of the farm, and, having passed between the islands of Iquitos and Paryanta, they reached the right bank of the Amazon. They landed at a clump of superb tree-ferns, which were crowned at a height of some thirty feet with a sort of halo made of the dainty branches of green velvet, and the delicate lacework of the drooping fronds. Well, Manuel, said Migna, it is for me to do the honors of the forest. You are only a stranger in these regions of the upper Amazon. We are at home here, and you must allow me to do my duty as mistress of the house. Dearest Migna, replied the young man, you will be none the less mistress of your house in our town of Belén than at the Pesenda Iquitos, and there, as here, now then, interrupted Benito. You did not come here to exchange loving speeches, I imagine. Just forget for a few hours that you are engaged. Not for an hour, not for an instant, said Manuel. Perhaps you will if Migna orders you? Migna will not order me. Who knows, said Lina, laughing. Lina is right, answered Migna, who held out her hand to Manuel. Try to forget. Forget. My brother requires it. All is broken off. As long as this walk lasts, we are not engaged. I am no more than the sister of Benito. You are only my friend. To be sure, said Benito. Bravo, bravo, there are only strangers here, said the young mulatto, clapping her hands. Strangers who see each other for the first time, added the girl, whom meet, bow to. Manuel Moselle, said Manuel, turning to Migna. To whom have I the honour to speak, sir? she said in the most serious manner possible. To Manuel Valdez, who be glad if your brother will introduce me. Away with your nonsense, cried Benito. Stupid idea that I had. Be engaged, my friends. Be it as much as you like. Be it always. Always, said Migna, from whom the word escaped so naturally that Lina's peals of laughter redoubled. A grateful glance from Manuel repaid Migna for the imprudence of her tongue. Come along, said Benito, so as to get his sister out of her embarrassment. If we walk on, we shall not talk so much. One moment, brother, she said, you have seen how ready I am to obey you. You wish to oblige Manuel and me to forget each other, so as not to spoil your walk. Very well, and now I am going to ask a sacrifice from you so that you shall not spoil mine. Whether it pleases you or not, Benito, you must promise me to forget—forget what? That you are a sportsman. What? You forbid me to— I forbid you to fire at any of these charming birds, any of the parrots, casiques, or corucous, which are flying about so happily among the trees, and the same interdiction with regard to the smaller game, with which we shall have to do to-day. If any ounce, jaguar, or such thing comes too near, well— but, said Benito, if not, I will take Manuel's arm, and we shall save or lose ourselves, and you will be obliged to run after us. Would you not like me to refuse, eh? asked Benito, looking at Manuel. I think I should, replied the young man. Well then, no, said Benito, I do not refuse. I will obey and annoy you. Come on. And so the four, followed by the black, struck under the splendid trees whose thick foliage prevented the sun's rays from ever reaching the soil. There is nothing more magnificent than this part of the right bank of the Amazon. There, in such picturesque confusion, so many different trees shoot up that it is possible to count more than a hundred different species in a square mile. A forester could easily see that no woodman had been there with his hatchet or axe, for the effects of a clearing are visible for many centuries afterward. If the new trees are even a hundred years old, the general aspect still differs from what it was originally, for the lianas and other parasitic plants alter, and signs remain which no native can misunderstand. The happy group move then into the tall herbage, across the thickets and under the bushes, chatting and laughing. In front, when the brambles were too thick, the negro, felling sword in hand, cleared the way and put thousands of birds to flight. Minya was right to intercede for the little winged world which flew about in the higher foliage, for the finest representations of tropical ornithology were there to be seen, green parrots and clamorous parakeets, which seemed to be the natural fruit of these gigantic trees, humming birds in all their varieties, light blue and ruby red, chizoras, with long scissors-like tails, looking like detached flowers, which the wind blew from branch to branch, black birds with orange plumage, bound with brown, golden-edged pecaficos, and sabias, black as crows, all united in a deafening concert of shrieks and whistles. The long beak of the toucan stood out against the golden clusters of the querides, and the tree-peckers, or wood-peckers of Brazil, wagged their little heads, speckled all over with their purple spots. It was truly a scene of enchantment. But all were silent and went into hiding, when above the tops of the trees there graded like a rusty weather-cop, the alma de gato, or soul of the cat, a kind of light, fawn-coloured sparrow-hawk. If he proudly hooded, displaying in the air the long white plumes of his tail, he, in his turn, meekly took to flight, when in the loftier heights there appeared the gavion, the large white-headed eagle, the terror of the whole-winged population of these woods. Minya made Manuel admire the natural wonders which could not be found in their simplicity in the more civilized provinces of the East. He listened to her more with his eyes than his ears, for the cries and the songs of these thousands of birds were every now and then so penetrating that he was not able to hear what she said. The noisy laughter of Lina was alone sufficiently shrill to ring out with its joyous note above every kind of clucking, chirping, hooting, whistling, and cooing. At the end of an hour they had scarcely gone a mile. As they left the river, the trees assumed another aspect, and the animal life was no longer met with near the ground, but at from sixty to eighty feet above where troops of monkeys chased each other along the higher branches. Here and there a few cones of the solar rays shot down into the underwood. In fact, in these tropical forests, light does not seem to be necessary for their existence. The air is enough for the vegetable growth, whether it be large or small, tree or plant, and all the heat required for the development of their sap is derived not from the surrounding atmosphere, but from the bosom of the soil itself, where it is stored up as in an enormous stove. And on the bromelias, grass plantains, orchids, cacti, and in short all the parasites which formed a little forest beneath the large one, many marvelous insects were they tempted to pluck as though they had been genuine blossoms, nesters with blue wings like shimmering watered silk, leilu butterflies reflexed with gold and striped with fringes of green, agrippina agrippina moths 10 inches long with leaves for wings, marabunda bees like living emeralds set in sockets of gold and legions of lampirans or pyrophorus coeliapters, valagumas with breastplates of bronze and green elitrae with yellow light pouring from their eyes, who when the night comes illuminate the forest with their many colored scintillations. What wonders, repeated the enthusiastic girl. You are at home, Minya, or at least you say so, said Benito, and that is the way you talk of your riches. Snir away, little brother, replied Minya. Such beautiful things are only lent to us, is it not so, Manuel? They come from the hand of the Almighty and belong to the world. Let Benito laugh on, Minya, said Manuel. He hides it very well, but he is a poet himself when his time comes, and he admires as much as we all do all these beauties of nature. Only when his gun is on his arm, goodbye to poetry. Then be a poet now, replied the girl. I am a poet, said Benito. Oh, nature enchanting, et cetera. We may confess, however, that in forbidding him to use his gun, Minya had imposed on him a genuine privation. There was no lack of game in the woods, and several magnificent opportunities he had declined with regret. In some of the less wooded parts, in places where the breaks were tolerably spacious, they saw several pairs of ostriches of the species known as Naudos, from four to five feet high, accompanied by their inseparable Cereimas, a sort of turkey, infinitely better from an edible point of view than the huge birds they escort. See what that wretched promise cost me, sighed Benito, as, at a gesture from his sister, he replaced under his arm the gun which had instinctively gone up to his shoulder. We ought to respect the Cereimas, said Manuel, for they are great destroyers of the snakes. Just as we ought to respect the snakes, replied Benito, because they eat the noxious insects, and just as we ought the insects, because they live on smaller insects more offensive still, at that rate we ought to respect everything. But the instinct of the young sportsman was about to be put to a still more rigorous trial. The woods became of a sudden full of game. Swift stags and graceful robux scampered off beneath the bushes, and a well-aimed bullet would have assuredly have stopped them. Here and there turkeys showed themselves with their milk and coffee-colored plumage, and peccaries, a sort of wild pig highly appreciated by lovers of venison, and agoutis, which are the hairs and rabbits of Central America, and tattoos belonging to the order of Edentates, with their scaly shells of patterns of mosaic. And truly Benito showed more than virtue, and even genuine heroism, when it came across some tapirs called Antas in Brazil, diminutives of the elephant already nearly undiscoverable on the banks of the upper Amazon and its tributaries. Pachyderms so dear to the hunters for their rarity, so appreciated by the gourmands for their meat, superior far to beef, and above all for the protuberance on the nape of the neck, which is a morsel fit for a king. His gun almost burned his fingers, but faithful to his promise he kept it quiet. But yet, and he cautioned his sister about this, the gun would go off in spite of him, and probably register a master stroke in sporting annals, if within range there should come a tamandoa asa, a kind of large and very curious anteater. Happily the big anteater did not show himself, neither did any panthers, leopards, jaguars, guepars, or cougars, called indifferently ounces in South America, and to whom it is not advisable to get too near. After all, said Benithu, who stopped for an instant, to walk is very well, but to walk without an object. Without an object, replied his sister, but our object is to see, to admire, to visit for the last time these forests of Central America, which we shall not find again in Pará, and to bid them a fast farewell. Ah! an idea! It was Lina who spoke. An idea of Lina's can be no other than a silly one, said Benithu, shaking his head. It is unkind, brother, said Minya, to make fun of Lina when she has been thinking how to give our walk the object which you have just regretted it lacks. Besides, Mr. Benithu, I am sure my idea will please you, replied the mulatto. Well, what is it? asked Minya. You see that, Lina? And Lina pointed to a Lina of the sipos kind, twisted round a gigantic sensitive mimosa, whose leaves, light as feathers, shut up at the least disturbance. Well, said Benithu. I proposed, replied Minya, that we try to follow that Lina to its very end. It is an idea, and it is an object, observed Benithu. To follow this Liana, no matter what may be the obstacles, thickets, underwood, rocks, brooks, torrents, to let nothing stop us, not even. Certainly you are right, brother, said Minya. Lina is a trifle absurd. Come on then, replied her brother. You say that Lina is absurd, so as to say that Benithu is absurd to approve of it. Well, both of you are absurd if that will amuse you, returned Minya. Let us follow the Liana. Are you not afraid, said Manuel. Still objections, shouted Benithu. Ah, Manuel, you would not speak like that if you were already on your way and Minya was waiting for you at the end. I am silent, replied Manuel. I have no more to say, I obey. Let us follow the Liana. And off they went, as happy as children home for their holidays. This vegetable might take them far if they determined to follow it to its extremity, like the thread of Ariadne, as far almost as that which the heiress of Minos used to lead her from the labyrinth, and perhaps entangle them more deeply. It was, in fact, a creeper of the Salsis family, one of the Sipos known under the name of the red Chapikanga, whose length sometimes measures several miles. But, after all, they could leave it when they liked. The Sipo passed from one tree to another without breaking its continuity, sometimes twisting round the trunks, sometimes garlanding the branches, here jumping from a dragon tree to a rosewood, then from a gigantic chestnut, the Bertholetia excelsa, to some of the wine palms, Bacabas, whose branches have been appropriately compared by acacis to long sticks of coral flecked with green. Here, round Tucumas, or Phycoses, capriciously twisted like centenarian olive trees, and of which Brazil had fifty-four varieties. Here round the kinds of euphobias, which produce cauchuque. Gualtes, noble palm trees, with slender, graceful and glossy stems, and cacao trees which shoot up of their own accord on the banks of the Amazon and its tributaries, having different melistomas, some with red flowers, and others ornamented with panicles of whitish berries. But the halts, the shouts of cheating, when the happy company thought they had lost their guiding thread, for it was necessary to go back and disentangle it from the knot of parasitic plants. There it is, said Lina. I see it. You are wrong, replied Minha. That is not it. That is a liana of another kind. No, Lina is right, said Manuel. No, Lina is wrong, Benito would naturally return. Hence highly serious, long-continued discussions in which no one would give in. Then the black on one side and Benito on the other would rush at the trees and clamor up to the branches encircled by the sipo, so as to arrive at the true direction. Now nothing was assuredly less easy in that jumble of knots, among which twisted the liana in the middle of Bromelias. Caratas, armed with their sharp prickles, orchids with rosy flowers and violet lips the size of gloves, and on sitiums, more tangled than a skein of worsted between a kitten's paws. And then, when the liana ran down again to the ground, the difficulty of picking it out under the mass of lycopods, large-leaved heliconyas, rosy-tassled caliandras, rip-salas encircling it like the thread on an electric reel, between the knots of the large white ipomas, under the fleshy stems of the vanilla, and in the midst of the shoots and branchlets of the granadilla and the vine. And when the sipo was found again, what shouts of joy, and how they resumed the walk for an instant interrupted. For an hour the young people had already been advancing, and nothing had happened to warn them that they were approaching the end. They shook the liana with vigor, but it would not give, and the birds flew away in hundreds, and the monkeys fled from tree to tree, so as to point out the way. If a thicket barred the road, the felling-sword cut a deep gap, and the group passed in. If it was a high rock, carpeted with verger over which the liana twisted like a serpent, they climbed it and passed on. A large break now appeared. There, in the more open air, which is as necessary to it as the light of the sun, the tree of the tropics par excellence, which, according to Humboldt, accompanies man in the infancy of his civilization, the great provider of the inhabitant of the torrid zones, a banana tree, was standing alone. The long festoon of the liana curled round its higher branches, moving away to the other side of the clearing, and disappeared again into the forest. Shall we stop soon? asked Manuel. No, a thousand times, no, cred bonito, not without having reached the end of it. Perhaps, observed Minya, it will soon be time to think of returning. Oh, dearest mistress, let us go on again, replied Lina. On forever, added Benito, and they plunged more deeply into the forest, which, becoming clearer, allowed them to advance more easily. Besides, the sepo bore away to the north and toward the river. It became less inconvenient to follow, seeing that they approached the right bank, and it would be easy to get back afterward. A quarter of an hour later, they all stopped at the foot of a ravine in front of a small tributary of the Amazon. But a bridge of lianas, made of bajucos, twined together by their interlacing branches, crossed the stream. The sepo, dividing into two strings, served for a hand rail, and passed from one bank to the other. Benito, all the time in front, had already stepped on the swinging floor of this vegetable bridge. Manuel wished to keep his sister back. Stay, stay, Minya, he said. Benito may go further if he likes, but let us remain here. No, come on, come on, dear mistress, said Lina. Don't be afraid, the liana is getting thinner, and we shall get the better of it and find out its end. And without hesitation the young mulatto boldly ventured toward Benito. What children they are, replied Minya. Come along, Manuel, we must follow. And they all cleared the bridge which swayed above the ravine like a swing, and plunged again beneath the mighty trees. But they had not proceeded for ten minutes along the interminable sepo in the direction of the river when they stopped, in this time not without cause. Have we got to the end of the liana? asked Minya. No, replied Benito, but we had better advance with care. Look, and Benito pointed to the sepo, which, lost in the branches of a high ficus, was agitated by violent shakings. What causes that? asked Manuel. Perhaps some animal that we had better approach with a little circumspection. And Benito, cocking his gun, motioned them to let him go on a bit, and stepped about ten paces to the front. Manuel, the two girls in the black, remained motionless, where they were. Suddenly Benito raised a shout, and they saw him rush toward a tree. They all ran as well. Sight the most unforeseen, and little adapted to gratify the eyes. A man, hanging by the neck, struggled at the end of the liana, which, supple as a cord, had formed into a slipknot, and the shakings came from the jerks into which he still agitated it in the last convulsions of his agony. Benito threw himself on the unfortunate fellow, and with a cut of his hunting-knife severed the sepo. The man slipped onto the ground. Manuel leaned over him, to try and recall him to life, if it was not too late. Poor man, murmured Minya. Mr. Manuel, Mr. Manuel, cried Lina. He breathes again. His heart beats. You must save him. True, said Manuel, but I think it was about time that we came up. He was about thirty years old, a white, clothed badly enough, much emaciated, and he seemed to have suffered a good deal. At his feet were an empty flask, thrown on the ground. And a cup and ball and palm wood, of which the ball, made of the head of a tortoise, was tied on with a fibre. To hang himself, to hang himself, repeated Lina, and young still, what could have driven him to do such a thing? But the attempts of Manuel had not been long in bringing the luckless white to life again, and he opened his eyes and gave an ahem, so vigorous and unexpected that Lina, frightened, replied to his cry with another. Who are you, my friend, beneath last him? An ex-hanger on, as far as I see. But your name? Wait a minute, and I will recall myself, said he, passing his hand over his forehead. I am known as Fragoso, at your service, and I am still able to curl and cut your hair, to shave you and to make you comfortable according to all the rules of my art. I am a barber, so to speak more truly, the most desperate of Figaros. And what made you think of... What would you have, my gallant sir? replied Fragoso with a smile. A moment of despair which I would have duly regretted had the regrets been in another world, but eight hundred leagues of country to traverse, and not a coin in my pouch was not very comforting. I had lost courage, obviously. To conclude, Fragoso had a good and pleasing figure. And as he recovered, it was evident that he was of a lively disposition. He was one of those wandering barbers who travel on the banks of the upper Amazon, going from village to village, and putting the resources of their art at the service of Negroes, Negresses, Indians, and Indian women, who appreciate them very much. But poor Fragoso, abandoned and miserable, having eaten nothing for forty hours, astray in the forest, had for an instant lost his head, and we know the rest. My friend, said Benito to him, you will go back with us to the Fesenda of Iquitos? With pleasure, replied Fragoso, you cut me down and I belong to you. I must somehow be dependent. Well, dear mistress, don't you think we did well to continue our walk? asked Lina. That I do, returned the girl. Never mind, said Benito. I never thought that we should finish by finding a man at the end of the sepul. And above all a barber and difficulties, and on the road to hang himself, replied Fragoso. The poor fellow, who is now wide awake, was told about what had passed. He warmly thanked Lina for the good idea she had had of following the Liana, and they all started on the road to the Fesenda, where Fragoso was received in a way that gave him neither wish nor want to try his wretched task again. End of Chapter 7 Following a Liana Recording by Scott Robbins Part 1, Chapter 8 of 800 Leagues on the Amazon This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information, or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org Recording by Scott Robbins 800 Leagues on the Amazon by Jules Verne Part 1 The Giant Raft Chapter 8 The Zhangabe The half-mile square of forest was cleared. With the carpenters remained the task of arranging in the form of a raft the many venerable trees which were lying on the strand. And an easy task it was. Under the direction of Zhuangarao, the Indians displayed their incomparable ingenuity. In everything connected with house-building or ship-building, these natives are, it must be admitted, astonishing workmen. They have only an axe and a saw, and they work on woods so hard that the edge of their tools gets absolutely jagged. Yet they square up trunks, shape beams out of enormous stems, and get out of them joists and planking without the aid of any machinery whatever, and endowed with their prodigious natural ability, do all these things easily with their skilled and patient hands. The trees had not been launched into the Amazon to begin with. Zhuangarao was accustomed to proceed in a different way. The whole mass of trunks was symmetrically arranged on a flat part of the bank, which he had already leveled up at the junction of the Nanay with the Great River. There it was that the Zhuangarao was to be built. Thence it was that the Amazon was to float it, when the time came for it to start for its destination. And here an explanatory note is necessary in regard to the geography of this immense body of water, and more especially as relating to a singular phenomenon which the riverside inhabitants described from personal observation. The two rivers, which are perhaps more extensive than the Great Artery of Brazil, the Nile and the Missouri Mississippi, flow one from south to north across the African continent, the other from north to south through North America. They cross districts of many different latitudes, and consequently of many different climates. The Amazon on the contrary is entirely comprised, at least it is from the point where it turns to the east, on the frontiers of Ecuador and Peru, between the second and fourth parallels of south latitude. Hence this immense river system is under the same climactic conditions during the whole of its course. In these parts there are two distinct seasons during which rain falls. In the north of Brazil the rainy season is in September, in the south it occurs in March. Consequently the right-hand tributaries and the left-hand tributaries bring down their floods at half-yearly intervals, and hence the level of the Amazon, after reaching its maximum in June, gradually falls until October. This Chuangarau knew by experience, and he intended to profit by the phenomenon to launch the Xangava after having built it in comfort on the riverbank. In fact, between the mean and the higher level, the height of the Amazon could vary as much as forty feet, and between the mean and the lower level, as much as thirty feet. A difference of seventy feet like this gave the fazender all he required. The building was commenced without delay. Along the huge bank the trunks were got into place according to their sizes and floating power, which of course had to be taken into account, as among these thick and heavy woods there were many whose specific gravity was but little below that of water. The first layer was entirely composed of trunks laid side by side. A little interval had to be left between them, and they were bound together by transverse beams, which assured the solidity of the whole. Piassaba ropes strapped them together as firmly as any chain cables could have done. This material, which consists of the ramicles of a certain palm tree growing very abundantly on the river banks, is in universal use in the district. Piassaba floats, resists immersion, and is cheaply made—very good reasons for causing it to be valuable, and making it even an article of commerce with the Old World. Above this double row of trunks and beams were disposed the joists and planks, which formed the floor of the Jangada, and rows about thirty inches above the lowed waterline. The bulk was enormous, as we must confess when it is considered the raft measured a thousand feet long and sixty broad, and thus had a superficies of sixty thousand square feet. They were, in fact, about to commit a whole forest to the Amazon. The work of building was conducted under the immediate direction of Zhuangarao, but when that part was finished the question of arrangement was submitted to the discussion of all, including even the gallant Fraguoso. Just a word as to what he was doing in his new situation at the Fazenda. The barber had never been so happy as since the day when he had been received by the hospitable family. Zhuangarao had offered to take him to Pará, on the road to which he was, when the Liana, according to his account, had seized him by the neck and brought him up with a round turn. Fraguoso had accepted the offer, thanked him from the bottom of his heart, and ever since had sought to make himself useful in a thousand ways. He was a very intelligent fellow, what one might call a double right-hander, that is to say he could do everything and could do everything well. As Mary as Lina, always singing and always ready was some good-natured joke, he was not long in being liked by all. But it was with the young mulatto that he claimed to have contracted the heaviest obligations. A famous idea that of yours, Miss Lina, he was constantly saying, to play it, follow in the Liana. It is a capital game, even if you do not always find a poor chap of a barber at the end. Quite a chance, Mr. Fraguoso, would laughingly reply, Lina. I assure you, you owe me nothing. What? Nothing. I owe you my life, and I want it prolonged for a hundred years, and that my recollection of the fact may endure even longer. You see, it is not my trade to be hanged. If I tried my hand at it, it was through necessity. But, on consideration, I would rather die of hunger, and before quite going off, I should try a little pasturage with the brutes. As for this Liana, it is a lean between us, and so you will see. The conversation generally took a joking turn, but at the bottom Fraguoso was very grateful to the mulatto for having taken the initiative in his rescue, and Lina was not insensible to the tensions of the brave fellow, who was as straightforward, frank, and good-looking as she was. Their friendship gave rise to a many-pleasant on the part of Benito, Old Sybell, and others. To return to the Jengada, after some discussion it was decided, as the voyage was to be of some months duration, as to make it as complete and comfortable as possible. The Garou family, comprising the father, mother, daughter, Benito, Manuel, and the servants, Sybell and Lina, were to live in a separate house. In addition to these, there were to go forty Indians, forty blacks, Fraguoso, and the pilot who was to take charge of the navigation of the raft. Though the crew was large, it was not more than sufficient for the service on board. To work the Jengada, along the windings of the river, and between the hundreds of islands and islets which lay in its course, required fully as many as were taken, for if the current furnished the motive power, it had nothing to do with the steering, and the 160 arms were no more than were necessary to work the long boat hooks by which the giant raft was to be kept in midstream. In the first place, then, in the hinder part of the Jengada, they built the master's house. It was arranged to contain several bedrooms and a large dining hall. One of the rooms was destined for Jean and his wife, another for Lina and Sybell, near those of their mistresses, and a third room for Benito and Manuel. Mimia had a room away from the others, which was not by any means the least comfortably designed. This, the principal house, was carefully made of weather boarding, saturated with boiling resin, and thus rendered watertight throughout. It was capital lightly lighted with windows on all sides. In front, the entrance door gave immediate access to the common room. A light veranda, resting on slender bamboos, protected the exterior from the direct action of the solar rays. The hole was painted a light ochre color, which reflected the heat instead of absorbing it, and kept down the temperature of the interior. But when the heavy work, so to speak, had been completed, Mimia intervened with, Father, now your care has enclosed and covered us. You must allow us to arrange our dwelling to please ourselves. The outside belongs to you, the inside to us. Mother and I would like it to be as though our house at the Vizendo went with us on the journey, so as to make you fancy that we had never left Iquitos. Do just as you like, Mimia, replied João Garão, smiling in the sad way he often did. That will be nice. I leave everything to your good taste. And that will do us honor, Father. It ought to, for the sake of the splendid country we are going through, which is yours, by the way, and into which you are to enter after so many years' absence. Yes, Mimia, yes, reply João. It is rather as if we were returning from exile, voluntary exile. Do your best. I approve beforehand of what you do. On Mimia and Lina, to whom were added of their own free will, Manuel on the one side and Fragosu on the other, devolved the care of decorating the inside of the house. With some imagination and a little artistic feeling, the result was highly satisfactory. The best furniture of the Fizendo naturally found its place within, as after arriving on Pará, they could easily return it by one of the Igariteos. Tables, bamboo easy-chairs, cane sofas, carved wood shelves, everything that constituted the charming furniture of the tropics was disposed with taste about the floating home. No one is likely to imagine that the walls remained bare. The boards were hidden beneath hangings of most agreeable variety. These hangings were made of valuable bark, that of the tuturis, which is raised up in large folds like the brocades and damasques, and softest and richest materials of our modern looms. On the floors of the rooms were jaguar skins with wonderful spots, and thick monkey furs of exquisite fleeciness. Like curtains of the russet silk produced by the sumauma hung from the windows. The beds enveloped in mosquito-curtains had their pillows, mattresses, and bolsters filled with that fresh and elastic substance which in the upper Amazon is yielded by the bomb-backs. Throughout on the shelves and side tables were little odds and ends brought from Rio Janeiro or Belém, those most precious to Minha being such as had come from Manuel. What could be more pleasing in her eyes than the knickknacks given by a loving hand which spoke to her without saying anything. In a few days the interior was completed, and it looked just like the interior of the Fizenda. A stationary house under a lovely clump of trees on the borders of some beautiful river. Until it descended between the banks of the larger stream it would not be out of keeping with the picturesque landscape which stretched away on each side of it. We may add that the exterior of the house was no less charming than the interior. In fact on the outside the young fellows had given free scope to their taste and imagination. From the basement to the roof it was literally covered with foliage, a confused mass of orchids, bromelias, and climbing plants, all in flour, rooted in boxes of excellent soil, hidden beneath masses of verger. The trunk of some Ficus or Ramosa was never covered by a more startling like tropical attire. What whimsical climbers, ruby red and golden yellow, with variegated clusters and tangled twigs, turned over the brackets, under the ridges, on the rafters of the roof, and across the lintels of the doors. They had brought them wholesale from the woods in the neighborhood of the Fizenda. A huge liana bound all the parasites together. Several times it made the round of the house, clinging on to every angle, and circling every projection, forking, uniting, it everywhere throughout its irregular branchlets, and allowed not a bit of the house to be seen beneath its enormous clusters of bloom. As a delicate piece of attention, the author of which can be easily recognized, the end of the sepo, spread out before the very window of the young mulatto, as though a long arm was forever holding a bouquet of fresh flowers across the blind. To sum up, it was as charming as could be, and as Yakita, her daughter, and Lina were content, we need say no more about it. It would not take much to make us plant trees on the zhangrada, said Benito. Oh, trees! ejaculated Minya. Why not? replied Manuel, transported onto the solid platform with some good soil? I am sure they would do well, and we would have no change of climate to fear for them, as the Amazon flows all the time along the same parallel. Besides, said Benito, every day islets of verger torn from the banks go drifting down the river. Do they not pass along with their trees, bushes, thickets, rocks, and fields to lose themselves in the Atlantic eight hundred leagues away? Why, then, should we not transform our raft into a floating garden? Would you like a forest, miss? said Fragosu, who stopped at nothing. Yes, a forest, cried the young mulatto, a forest with its birds and its monkeys. Its snakes, its jaguars, continued Benito. Its Indians, its nomadic tribes, added Manuel, and even its cannibals. But where are you going to, Fragosu? said Minya, seeing the active barber making a rush at the bank. To look after the forest, replied Fragosu. Useless, my friend, answered the smiling Minya. Manuel has given me a nose-gay, and I am quite content. It is true, she added, pointing to the house hidden beneath the flowers, that he has hidden our house in his betrothal bouquet. End of Chapter 8. THE JUNGAVA Recording by Scott Robbins. Part 1, Chapter 9, of 800 leagues on the Amazon. This is the LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by Fred Ebert. 800 leagues on the Amazon by Jules Verne. Part 1. THE GIANT RAFT. Chapter 9. THE EVENING OF THE FIFTH OF JUNE. While the master's house was being constructed, Yom Garal was also busy in the arrangement of the outbuildings, comprising the kitchen and the offices in which provisions of all kinds were intended to be stored. In the first place there was an important stock of the roots of that little tree, some six or ten feet in height, which yields the manioc and which form the principal food of the inhabitants of these intertropical countries. The root, very much like a long black radish, grows in clumps like potatoes. If it is not poisonous in Africa, it is certain that in South America it contains a more noxious juice, which it is necessary to previously get rid of by pressure. When this result is obtained the root is reduced to flour and then is then used in many ways, even in the form of tapioca, according to the fancy of the natives. On board the Junkata there was a huge pile of this useful product destined for general consumption. As for preserved meats, not forgetting a whole flock of sheep, kept in a special stable built in the front, they consisted principally of a quantity of the prosunto hams of the district, which are of first class quality, but the guns of the young fellows and of some of the Indians were reckoned on for additional supplies, excellent hunters as they were, to whom there was likely to be no lack of game on the islands and in the forest bordering on the stream. The river was expected to furnish its daily quota, prawns, which ought rather to be called crawfish, Tambagas, the finest fish in the district of a flavor superior to that of salmon, to which it is often compared, Perarucas with red scales as large as sturgeons, which when salted are used in great quantities throughout Brazil. Candiras, awkward to capture but good to eat, Paranas, or devilfish, striped with red bands and 30 inches long, turtles large and small, which are counted by millions, and form so large a part of the food of the natives, some of every one of these things that was hoped would figure in turn on the tables of the master and his men. And so each day shooting and fishing were to be regularly indulged in. For beverages they had a good store of the best that the country produce, Caesuma, Machachera, from the upper and lower Amazon, and a griable liqueur of slightly acidulated taste, which is distilled from the boiled root of the sweet maniac. Baidu, from Brazil, a sort of national brandy, the Chica of Peru, the Masado of the Yucca Yali extracted from the boiled fruits of the banana tree, pressed and fermented. Garana, a kind of paste made from the double almond of the Paulineo sorbalus, a genuine tablet of chocolate so far as its color goes, which is reduced to a fine powder and with the addition of water yields an excellent drink, and this was not all. There is in these countries a species of dark violet wine, which is got from the juice of the palm, and the aromatic flavor of this assai is greatly appreciated by the Brazilians, and of it there were on board a respectable number of frescs, each holding a little more than half a gallon, which would probably be emptied before they arrived at Para. The special seller of the Junkata did honor to Benito, who had been appointed its commander-in-chief. Several hundred bottles of sherry, port, ladebal, were called names dear to the earlier conquerors of South America. In addition the young butler had stored away certain demi-jons holding half a dozen gallons each of excellent taffia, a sugared brandy, a trifle more pronounced in taste, than the national Viju. As far as tobacco was concerned there was none of that course kind which usually contents the natives of the Amazonian basin. It all came directly from via Bella da Imperatrice, or in other words, from the district in which has grown the best tobacco in Central America. The principal habitation, with its annexes, kitchen, offices, and cellars, was placed in the rear, or let us say, stern of the craft, and formed a part reserve for the Garral family and their personal servants. In the center the huts for the Indians and the blacks had been erected. The staff were thus placed under the same conditions at the Fizenda of Iquitos, and would always be able to work under the direction of the pilot. To house the crew a good many huts were required, and these gave to the Jankata the appearance of a small village got adrift, and to tell the truth it was better built and better peopled village than many of those on the upper Amazon. For the Indians, Joan Corral had designed regular cabins, huts without walls, with only light poles supporting the roof of foliage. The air circulated freely throughout these open constructions and swung the hammocks suspended in the interior, and the natives, among whom were three or four complete families, with women and children, were lodged as if they were on shore. The blacks here found their customary sheds. They differed from the cabins by being closed in on their four faces, of which only one gave access to the interior. The Indians, accustomed to live in the open air, free and untrammeled, were not able to accustom themselves to the imprisonment of the Ajupas, which agreed better with the life of the blacks. In the bow regular warehouses had arisen containing the goods which Joan Corral was carrying to Belam at the same time as the products of his forest. There, in vast storerooms under the direction of Benito, the rich cargo had been placed with as much order as if it had been carefully stowed away in a ship's hold. In the first place, seven thousand aerobas of cowchock, each of about thirty pounds, composed the most precious part of the cargo, for every pound of it was worth from three to four francs. The Junkada also took fifty-hundred weight of sarsparilla, a smilax which forms an important branch of foreign trade throughout the Amazon District, and is getting rarer and rarer along the banks of the river, so that the natives are very careful to spare the stems when they gather them. Tonkin bands, known in Brazil under the name of Komaris, and used in the manufacture of certain essential oils, sassafras, from which is extracted a precious balsam for wounds, bales of dying plants, cases of several gums, and a quantity of the precious woods completed a well-adapted cargo for lucrative and easy sale in the provinces of Para. Some may feel astonished that the number of Indians and negroes embarked were only sufficient to work the raft, and that a larger number were not taken in case of an attack by the riverside Indians. Such would have been useless. The natives of Central America are not to be feared in the least, and the times are quite changed since it was necessary to provide against their aggressions. The Indians along the river belonged to peaceable tribes, and the fiercest of them have retired before the advancing civilization and drawn further and further away from the river and its tributaries. Negro deserters escaped from the penal colonies of Brazil, England, Holland, or France are alone to be feared. But there are only a small number of these fugitives. They only move in isolated groups across the savannas or the woods, and the jincada was, in a measure, secured from any attack on the parts of the back woodsmen. On the other hand, there were a number of settlements on the river, towns, villages, and missions. The immense stream no longer traverses a desert, but a basin which is being colonized day by day. Danger was not taken into consideration. There were no precautions against attacks. To conclude our description of the jincada, we have only to speak of one or two erections of different kinds, which gave it a very picturesque aspect. In the bow was the cabin of the pilot. We say in the bow, and not at the stern, where the helmsman is generally found, in navigating under such circumstances a rudder is of no use. Long oars have no effect on a raft of such dimensions, even when worked with a hundred sturdy arms. It was from the sides by means of long boat-hooks or props thrust against the bed of the stream that the jincada was kept in the current and had its direction altered when going astray. By this means they could range alongside either bank if they wished for any reason to come to a halt. Three or four yubas and two parogues, which were the necessary riggings, were carried on board, and afforded easy communications with the banks. The pilot had to look after the channels of the river, the deviations of the current, the eddies which it was necessary to avoid, the creeks or bays which afforded favorable anchorage, and to do this he had to be in the bow. If the pilot was the material director of this immense machine, for can we not justly call it so? Another personage was its spiritual director. This was Padre Pasana, who had charge of the mission at Iquitos. A religious family like that of Jerome Garals had availed themselves enthusiastically of this occasion of taking him with them. Padre Pasana, then age seventy, was a man of great worth, full of evangelical fervor, charitable and good, and in countries where the representatives of religion are not always examples of the virtues, he stood out as the accomplished type of those great missionaries who have done so much for his civilization in the interior of the most savage regions of the world. For fifty years Padre Pasana had lived at Iquitos, in the mission of which he was the chief. He was loved by all, and worthily so. The Garal family held him in great esteem. It was he who had married the daughter of Pharma Magaeus to the clerk who had been received at the Fazenda. He had known the children from birth. He had baptized them, educated them, and hoped to give each of them the nuptial blessing. The age of the Padre did not allow of his exercising his important ministry any longer. The horn of retreat for him had sounded. He was about to be replaced at Iquitos by a younger missionary, and he was preparing to return to Para to end his days in one of those convents which are reserved for the old servants of God. What better occasion could offer than that of descending the river with the family which was as his own. They had proposed it to him and he had accepted, and when arrived at Bellum he was to marry the young couple, Mina and Manuel. But if Padre Pasana, during the course of the voyage, was to take his meals with the family, Jean Garal desired to build for him a dwelling apart, and heaven knows what care Yakita and her daughter took to make him comfortable. Assuredly the good old priest had never been so lodged in his modest parsonage. The parsonage was not enough for Padre Pasana. He ought to have a chapel. The chapel then was built in the center of the Junkata, and a little bell surmounted it. It was small enough, undoubtedly, and it could not hold the hold of the crew, but it was richly decorated, and if Jerome Garal found his own house on the raft, Padre Pasana had no cause to regret the poverty-stricken churches of Iquitos. Such was the wonderful structure which was going down the Amazon. It was then on the bank waiting till the flood came to carried it away. From the observation and calculation of the rising it would seem as though there was not much longer to wait. All was ready to date, the fifth of June. The pilot arrived the evening before. He was a man about fifty, well up in his profession, but rather fond of drink. Such as he was, Jerome Garal in large matters at different times had employed him to take his rafts to Bellum, and he had never had cause to repent it. It is well to add that Araujo, that was his name, never saw better than when he had imbibed a few glasses of taffia, and he never did any work at all without a certain demigod of that liquor to which he paid frequent court. The rise of the flood had clearly manifested itself for several days. From minute to minute the level of the river rose, and during the twenty-four hours which preceded the maximum the waters covered the bank on which the raft rested, but did not lift the raft. As soon as the movement was assured, and there could be no error as to the height to which the flood would rise, all those interested in the undertaking were seized with no little excitement. For if through some inexplicable cause the waters of the Amazon did not rise sufficiently to flood the Jakata it would all have to be built over again. But as the fall of the river would be very rapid it would take long months before similar conditions recurred. On the fifth of June toward the evening the future passengers of the Jakata were collected on a plateau which was about a hundred feet above the bank and waited for the hour with an anxiety quite intelligible. There were Jakata, her daughter Manuel Valdez, Padre Pasana, Benito, Lina, Fragosa, Sibela, and some of the servants, Indian or Negro, of the Fazenda. Fragoso could not keep himself still. He went and he came. He ran down the bank and ran up the plateau. He noted the points of the river-gauge and shouted Hurrah as the water crept up. It will swim, it will swim, he shouted. The raft which is to take us to Balaim, it will float if all the cataracts of the sky have to open to flood the Amazon. Jean Garreau was on the raft with the pilot and some of the crew. It was for him to take all necessary measures at the critical moment. The Jakata was moored to the bank with solid cables so that it could not be carried away by the current when it floated off. Quite a tribe from one hundred and fifty to two hundred Indians, without counting the population of the village, had come to assist at the interesting spectacle. They were all keenly on the watch and silence reigned over the impressionable crowd. Toward five o'clock in the evening the water had reached a level higher than that of the night before, by more than a foot, and the bank had already entirely disappeared beneath the liquid covering. A certain groaning arose among the planks of the enormous structure, but there was still wanting a few inches before it was quite lifted and detached from the ground. For an hour the groanings increased. The joist graded on all sides. A struggle was going on in which little by little the trunks were being dragged from their sandy bed. Toward half past six cries of joy arose. The Jakata floated at last and the current took it towards the middle of the river, but in obedience to the cables it quietly took up its position near the bank at the moment that Padre Pasana gave it his blessing, as if it were a vessel launched into the sea whose destinies are in the hands of the most high. End of Chapter 9 The Evening of the Fifth of June Part 1 Chapter 10 of 800 Leagues on the Amazon This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. 800 Leagues on the Amazon by Jules Verne Part 1 The Giant Raft Chapter 10 From Iquitos to Pevas On the 6th of June, the very next day, Joan Carral and his people bade goodbye to the superintendent and the Indians and Negroes who were to stay behind at the Facenda. At six o'clock in the morning, the Jangara received all its passengers, or rather inhabitants, and each of them took possession of his cabin, or perhaps we had better say his house. The moment of departure had come. Araujo, the pilot, got into his place at the bow and the crew, armed with their long poles, went to their proper quarters. Joan Carral, assisted by Benito and Manuel, superintendent the unmoring. At the command of the pilot, the ropes were eased off and the poles applied to the bank so as to give the Jangara a start. The current was not long in seizing it and coasting the left bank, the islands of Iquitos and Parrianta were passed on the right. The voyage had commenced. Where would it finish? In Para, at Belém, 800 leagues from this little Peruvian village, if nothing happened to modify the route, how would it finish? That was the secret of the future. The weather was magnificent. A pleasant pampero tempered the ardor of the sun. One of those winds which in June or July come from off the cordilleras, many hundred leagues away after having swept across the huge plain of the Sacramento. Had the raft been provided with masts and sails, she would have felt the effects of the breeze, and her speed would have been greater. But owing to the sinuosities of the river, and its abrupt changes which they were bound to follow, they had had to renounce such assistance. In a flat district like that through which the Amazon flows, which is almost a boundless plain, the gradient of the riverbed is scarcely perceptible. It has been calculated that between Tabatinga on the Brazilian frontier and the source of this huge body of water, the difference of level does not exceed a decimeter in each league. There is no other river in the world whose inclination is so slight. It follows from this that the average speed of the current cannot be estimated at more than two leagues in twenty-four hours, and sometimes while the droughts are on, it is even less. However, during the period of the floods, it has been known to increase to between thirty and forty kilometers. Happily, it was under these latter conditions that the jangada was to proceed. But, cumperous in its movements, it could not keep up to the speed of the current which ran past it. There are also to be taken into account the stoppages occasioned by the bends in the river, the numerous islands which had to be rounded, the shawls which had to be avoided, and the hours of halting which were necessarily lost when the night was too dark to advance securely, so that we cannot allow more than twenty-five kilometers for each twenty-four hours. In addition, the surface of the water is far from being completely clear. Trees still green, vegetable remains, islets of plants constantly torn from the banks, formed quite a flotilla of fragments carried on by the currents, and were so many obstacles to speedy navigation. The mouth of the nanai was soon past, and lost to sight behind a point on the left bank, which, with its carpet of russet grasses tinted by the sun, formed a ready relief to the green forests on the horizon. The jangada took the center of the stream between the numerous picturesque islands, of which there are a dozen between Iquitos and Pucalpa. Araujo, who did not forget to clear his vision and his memory, by an occasional application to his demi-john, maneuvered very ably when passing through this archipelago. At his word of command, fifty poles from each side of the raft were raised in the air and struck the water with an automatic movement very curious to behold. While this was going on, Yaquita, aided by Lina and Sibelé, was getting everything in order, and the Indian cooks were preparing the breakfast. As for the two young fellows in Minya, they were walking up and down in company with Padre Pasagna, and from time to time the lady stopped and watered the plants which were placed about the base of the dwelling-house. Well, Padre, said Benito, do you know a more agreeable way of traveling? No, my dear boy, replied the Padre, it is truly traveling with all one's belongings. And without any fatigue, added Manuel, we might do hundreds of thousands of miles in this way. And, said Minya, you do not repent having taken passage with us? Does it not seem to you, as if we were afloat on an island drifted quietly away from the bed of the river with its prairies and its trees only? Only, repeated the Padre, only we have made the island with our own hands. It belongs to us, and I prefer it to all the islands of the Amazon. I have a right to be proud of it. Yes, my daughter, and I absolve you from your pride. Besides, I am not allowed to scold you in the presence of Manuel. But, on the other hand, replied she gaily, you should teach Manuel to scold me when I deserve it. He is a great deal too indulgent to my little self. Well, then, dear Minya, said Manuel, I shall profit by that permission to remind you of what? That you were very busy in the library at the Facenda, and that you promised to make me very learned about everything connected with the upper Amazon. We know very little about it in Para, and here we have been passing several islands, and you have not even told me their names. What is the good of that, said she? Yes, what is the good of it, repeated Benito? What can be the use of remembering the hundreds of names in the Tupi dialect with which these islands are dressed out? It is enough to know them. The Americans are much more practical with their Mississippi islands. They number them. As they number the avenues and streets of their towns, replied Manuel. Frankly, I don't care much for that numerical system. It conveys nothing to the imagination. 64th Island or 65th Island, any more than 6th Street or 3rd Avenue. Don't you agree with me, Minya? Yes, Manuel, though, I am somewhat the same way of thinking as my brother. But even if we do not know their names, the islands of our great river are truly splendid. See how they rest under the shadows of those gigantic palm trees with their drooping leaves, and the girdle of reeds which encircles them through which a pierogi can with difficulty make its way, and the mangrove trees whose fantastic roots buttress them to the bank like the claws of some gigantic crab. Yes, the islands are beautiful, but, beautiful as they are, they cannot equal the one we have made our own. My little Minya is enthusiastic today, said the padre. Ah, padre, I am so happy to see everybody happy around me. At this moment the voice of Yakita was heard calling Minya into the house. The young girl smilingly ran off. You will have an amiable companion, said the padre. All the joy of the house goes away with you, my friend. Brave little sister, said Benito, we shall miss her greatly, and the padre is right. However, if you do not marry her, Manuel, there is still time. She will stay with us. She will stay with you, Benito, replied Manuel. Believe me, I have a presentiment that we shall all be reunited. The first day passed capitally. Breakfast, dinner, siesta, walks, all took place as a Jean-Garral and his people were still in the comfortable facenda of Iquitos. During these 24 hours the mouths of the rivers Bacali, Chocho, Bucalpa on the left of the stream, and those of the rivers Itinikari, Maniti, Moyok, Tokuya, and the islands of this name on the right, were passed without accident. The night lighted by the moon allowed them to save a halt, and the giant raft glided peacefully on along the surface of the Amazon. On the morrow, the 7th of June, the Jangada breasted the banks of the village of Bucalpa, named also New Oran. Old Oran, situated 15 leagues downstream on the same left bank of the river, is almost abandoned for the new settlement, whose population consists of Indians belonging to the Majoruna and Orejone tribes. Nothing can be more picturesque than this village with its ruddy colored banks, its unfinished church, its cottages whose chimneys are hidden amid the palms, and its two or three Ubas have stranded on the shore. During the whole of the 9th of June, the Jangada continued to follow the left bank of the river, passing several unknown tributaries of no importance. For a moment there was a chance of her grounding on the easterly shore of the island of Sinecure, but the pilot, well-served by the crew, warded off the danger and remained in the flow of the stream. In the evening they arrived alongside a narrow island called Napo Island, from the name of the river which here comes in from the north-northwest, and mingles its waters with those of the Amazon through a mouth about 800 yards across, after having watered the territories of the Koto and Orejone Indians. It was on the morning of the 7th of June that the Jangada was abreast the little island of Mango, which causes the Napo to split into two streams before falling into the Amazon. Several years later a French traveler, Paul Marquoy, went out to examine the color of the waters of this tributary, which has been graphically compared to the cloudy greenish opal of Abbotsynth. At the same time he corrected some of the measurements of La Condamine, but then the mouth of the Napo was sensibly increased by the floods, and it was a good deal of rapidity that its current, coming from the eastern slopes of Kotopashi, hurried fiercely to mingle itself with the tawny waters of the Amazon. A few Indians had wandered to the mouth of this river. They were robust in build of tall stature with shaggy hair and had their noses pierced with a rod of palm, and the lobes of the ears lengthened to their shoulders by the weight of heavy rings of precious wood. Some women were with them. None of them showed any intention of coming on board. It is asserted that these natives are cannibals, but if that is true, and it is said of many of the riverine tribes, there must have been more evidence for the cannibalism than we get today. Some hours later the village of Bella Vista, situated on a somewhat lower bank, appeared with its cluster of magnificent trees towering above a few huts, roofed with straw, over which there drooped the large leaves of some medium-sized banana trees, like the waters overflowing from a tazza. Then the pilots, so as to follow a better current, which turned off from the bank, directed the raft toward the right side of the river, which he had not yet approached. The maneuver was not accomplished without certain difficulties, which were successfully overcome after a good many resorts to the Demijon. This allowed them to notice in passing some of those numerous lagoons with black waters, which are distributed along the course of the Amazon, and which often have no communication with the river. One of these, bearing the name of the Lagoon of Oran, is a fair size, and receives the water by a large strait in the middle of the stream, are scattered several islands, and two or three islands curiously grouped. And on the opposite bank, Benito recognized the site of the ancient Oran, of which they could only see a few uncertain traces. During two days the Jangada traveled sometimes under the left bank, sometimes under the right, according to the condition of the current, without giving the least sign of grounding. The passengers had already become used to this new life. Jangarral, leaving to his son everything that referred to the commercial site of the expedition, kept himself principally to his room, thinking, and writing. What he was writing about, he told to nobody, nor even Yakita, and it seemed to have already assumed the importance of a veritable essay. Benito, all observation, chatted with the pilot and acted as manager. Yakita, her daughter, and Manuel nearly always formed a group apart, discussing their future projects just as they had walked and done in the park of the Facenda. The life was, in fact, the same, not quite perhaps to Benito, who had not yet found occasion to participate in the pleasures of the chase. If, however, the forests of Iquitos failed him with their wild beasts, agoutis, pecoris, and cabias, the birds flew in flocks from the banks of the river and fearlessly perched on the Jakanda. When they were of such quality as to figure fairly on the table, Benito shot them, and in the interest of all his sister raised no objection. But if he came across any gray or yellow herons, or red or white ibises, which haunt the sides, he spared them through love for menia. One single species of grebe, which is unedible, found no grace in the eyes of the young merchant. This was the Kayarara, as quick to dive as to swim or fly, a bird with a disagreeable cry, but whose down bears a high price in the different markets of the Amazonian basin. At length, after having passed the village of Omaguas and the mouth of the Ambiaku, the Jangara arrived at Pejas on the evening of the 11th of June, and was moored to the bank. As it was to remain here for some hours before nightfall, Benito disembarked, taking with him the ever-ready Fragoso, and the two sportsmen started off to be the thickest of the Amvirons of the little place. An agouti and a cabiae, not to mention a dozen partridges, enriched the larder after this fortunate excursion. At Peves, where there is a population of 260 inhabitants, Benito would perhaps have done some trade with the lay brothers of the mission, who are at the same time wholesale merchants, but these had just sent away some bales of sarsaparilla and robas of cauchu towards the lower Amazon, and their stores were empty. The Jangara departed at daybreak and passed the little archipelago of the Latio and Cochiquinas Islands after having left the village of the latter name on the night. Several mouths of smaller unnamed affluence showed themselves on the right of the river through the spaces between the islands. Many natives with shaved heads, tattooed cheeks and foreheads, carrying plates of metal in the lobes of their ears, noses and lower lips, appeared for an instant on the shore. They were armed with arrows and blow-tubes, but made no use of them and did not even attempt to communicate with the Jangara. End of chapter 10 from Iquitos to Peves Part 1 Chapter 11 of 800 Leagues on the Amazon This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org 800 Leagues on the Amazon by Jules Verne Part 1 Chapter 11 from Peves to the Frontier During the few days which followed, nothing occurred worthy of note. The nights were so fine that the long raft went on its way, with the stream without even help. The two picturesque banks of the river seemed to change like the panoramas of the theaters, which unroll from one wing to another. But a kind of optical illusion it appeared, as though the raft was motionless between two moving pathways. Benito had no shooting on the banks, for no halt was made, but game was very advantageously replaced by the results of the fishing. A great variety of excellent fish were taken, Pacos, Surubis, Gamitanus, of exquisite flavor, and several of those large arrays called Duridaris, with rose-colored stomachs and black bags armed with highly poisonous darts. There were also collected by thousands those Candirus, a kind of small celerus, of which many are microscopic and which so frequently make a pincushion of the calves of the batter when he imprudently ventures into their hounds. The rich waters of the Amazon were also frequented by many other aquatic animals, which escorted the Jangada through its waves for whole hours together. There were the gigantic Priarucus, 10 and 12 feet long. Kyrust was large scales with scarlet borders, whose flesh was not much appreciated by the natives. Neither did they care to capture many of the graceful dolphins which played about in hundreds, striking with their tails the planks of the raft, gumbling at the bow and stern, and making the water alive with colored reflections and spurts of spray, which the refracted light converted into so many rainbows. On the 16th of June, the Jangada, after fortunately clearing several shallows and approaching the banks, arrived near the large island of San Pablo, and the following evening she stopped at the village of Moro Moros, which is situated on the left side of the Amazon. Twenty-four hours afterward, passing the mouth of the Atacuari, or Kocha, or rather the Furo, or Canal, which communicates with the lake of Cabello Kocha on the right bank, she put in at the rising ground of the mission of Kocha. This was the country of the Marahua Indians, whose long floating hair and mouths opening in the middle of a kind of pen, made of the spines of palm trees, six inches long, give them a cat-like look, their endeavor being according to Paul Marquay, to resemble the tiger, whose boldness, strength, and cunning they admire above everything. Several women came with these Marahua smoking cigars, but holding the lighted ends in their teeth. All of them, like the king of the Amazonian forests, go about almost naked. The mission of Kocha was then in charge of a Franciscan monk, who was anxious to visit Padre Passagna. Jean Goral received him with a warm welcome, and offered him a seat at the dinner table. On that day was given a dinner which did honor to the Indian cook. The traditional soup of fragrant herbs, cake so often made to replace bread in Brazil, composed of the flour of the manioc, thoroughly impregnated with the gravy of meat and tomato jelly, paltry with rice, swimming in a sharp sauce made of vinegar and malaketa, a dish of spiced herbs. A cold cake sprinkled with cinnamon formed enough to tempt a poor monk, reduced to the ordinary meager fare of his parish. They tried all they could to detain him, and Jakita and her daughter did their utmost in persuasion. But the Franciscan had to visit on that evening an Indian who was lying ill at Kocha, and he hurtily sank the hospitable family and departed, not without taking a few presents, which would be well received by the Neophytes in submission. For two days Araujo was very busy. The bed of the river gradually enlarged, but the islands became very numerous, and the current, embarrassed by these obstacles, increased in strength. Great care was necessary in passing between the islands of Cabello, Kocha, Tarapotte and Cacao. Many stoppages had to be made, and occasionally they were obliged to pull off the Cangada, which now and then threatened to run aground. Everyone assisted in the work, and it was under these difficult circumstances that, on the evening of the 20th of June, they found themselves at Nuestres Senora de Loretto. Loretto is the last Peruvian town situated on the left bank of the river, before arriving at the Brazilian frontier. It's only a little village, composed of about 20 houses, grouped into a slightly undulating bank, formed of orchard's earth and clay. It was in 1770 that this mission was founded by the Jesuit missionaries, that the Kuma Indians, who inhabit the territories on the north of the river, are natives with ruddy skins, bushy hair, and strapped designs on their faces, making them look like the lacquer on a Chinese table. Both men and women are simply closed, with cotton bands bound around their thighs and stomachs. They are now not more than 200 in number, and on the banks of the Atacuari are found the last traces of a nation, which was formerly so powerful under its famous chiefs. At Loretto there also live a few Peruvian soldiers and two or three Portuguese merchants, trading cotton stuffs, saltfish, and sausaparilla. Benito went ashore to buy, if possible, a few bales of this Smilach, which is always so much in demand in the markets of the Amazon. Rom Garral occupied all the time in the work, which gave him a moment's rest, did not stir. Jacinta, her daughter and Manuel, also remained on board. The mosquitoes of Loretto have a deserved reputation for driving away such visitors, as do not care to leave much of their blood with their redoubtable diptera. Manuel had a few appropriate words to say about these insects, and they were not of a nature to encourage an inclination to brave their stings. They say that all the new species which infest the banks with the Amazon collected the village of Loretto. I believe it, but do not wish to confirm it. There, Minha, you can take your choice between the gray mosquito, the hairy mosquito, the white cloth mosquito, the dwarf mosquito, the trumpeter, the little fifer, the arctic weas, the harlequin, the big black, and the red of the woods. Or else they may take their choice of you for a little reparsed, and you will come back hardly recognizable. I fancy these blood-thirsty diptera guard the Brazilian frontier considerably better than the poverty-stricken soldiers we see on the bank. But if everything is of use in nature, asked Minha, what is the use of mosquitoes? They ministered to the happiness of entomologist, replied Manuel, and I should be much embarrassed to find a better explanation. What Manuel had said of the Loretto mosquitoes was only too true. When Benito had finished his business and returned on board, his face and hands were tattooed with thousands of red points, without counting some chigos, which, in spite of the leather of his boots, had introduced themselves beneath his toes. Let us set off this very instant, said Benito, or these wretched insects will invade us, and the Giangada will become uninhabitable. And we shall take them into para, said Manuel, where there are already quite enough for its own needs. And so, in order not to pass even the night near the banks, the Giangada pushed off into the stream. On leaving Loretto the Amazon turned slightly towards the southwest, between the islands of Arava, Cuiari and Urkutea. The Giangadas and lighted along the black waters of the Cajarro, are then mingled with the white stream of the Amazon. After having passed this tributary on the left, it peacefully arrived during the evening of the 23rd of June, alongside the large island of Jahuama. The setting of the sun on a clear horizon, free from all haze, announced one of those beautiful tropical nights, which are unknown in the temperate zones. A light breeze freshened the air, the moon arose in the constellated depths of the sky, and for several hours took the place of the twilight, which is absent from these latitudes. But even during this period, the stars shone with unequal purity. The immense plains seemed to stretch into the infinite like a sea. And at the extremity of the axis, which measures more than 200 000 millions of leagues, there appeared on the north, the single diamond of the pole star, on the south, the four brilliance of the southern cross. The trees on the left bank and on the island of Jahuama stood up in sharp black outline. They were recognizable in the undecided silhouettes, the trunks or other columns of copajos, which spread out in umbrellas, groups of sundaes, from which is enthrased the thick and sugared milk, intoxicating as wine itself, and Vignaticos, 80 feet high, whose summit shake at the passage of the lightest currents of air. What a magnificent sermon are these forests of the Amazon, has been justly said. Yes, and we might add, what a magnificent hymn there is in the nights of the tropics. The birds were getting forth their last evening notes, Ben Teavis, who hangs their nests on the bankside reeds, Neambus, a kind of partridge, whose song is composed of four notes, in perfect accord. Camichis, with their plentative melody, Kingfisher's, whose call responds like a signal to the last cry of their congeners. Canindes, with their sonorous trumpets and red macaws, who fold their wings in the foliage of the jacketipas, when night comes on to dim their glowing colors. On the John Carter everyone was at his post, in the attitude of repose. The pilot alone, standing in the bow, showed his tall stature, scarcely defined in the earlier shadows. The watch, whose long pull on his shoulder reminded one of an encampment of tartar horsemen. The Brazilian flag hung from the top of the staff in the bow, and the breeze was scarcely strong enough to lift the bunting. At eight o'clock the three first tinklings of the Angelus escaped from the bell of the little chapel. The three tinklings of the second and third verses sounded in their turn, and the salutation was completed in the series of more rapid strokes of the little bell. However, the family after this July day remained sitting under the veranda to breathe the fresh air from the open. It had been so each evening, and while Jean-Garrelle, always silent, was contented to listen, the young people gaily chatted away till bedtime. Ah, our splendid river, our magnificent Amazon, exclaimed the young girl, whose enthusiasm for the immense stream never failed. An equal river in very truth, said Manuel, and I do not understand all its sublime beauties. We are going down it, however, like Orellana and Locondamine did so many centuries ago, and I am not at all surprised at their marvellous descriptions. A little fabulous replied Benito. Now, brother, said Minha seriously, say no evil of our Amazon. To remind you that it has its legends, my sister, is to say no ill of it. Yes, that's true, and it has some marvellous ones, replied Minha. What legends, asked Manuel, I dare of those that they have not yet found their way into Para, or rather that, for my part, I am not acquainted with them. What then do you learn in the Bellum Colleges? Laughingly asked Minha. I begin to perceive that they teach us nothing, replied Manuel. What, sir, replied Minha, is a pleasant seriousness. You do not know, among other fables, that an enormous reptile, called the Minhot Kao, sometimes visits the Amazon, and that the waters of the river rise or fall according at the serpent plunges in or quits them, so gigantic is he. But have you ever seen this phenomenal Minho Kao? Alas, now replied Lina. What a pity, Fragoso thought it proper to add. And the Mayadu aqua, continued the girl, that proud and redoubtable woman, whose look fascinates and drags beneath the waters of the river, the imprudent ones who gaze on her. Oh, as for the Mayadu aqua, she exists, cried the naive Lina. They say that she still walks on the banks, but disappears like a water spread, as soon as you approach her. Very well, Lina, said Benito. The first time you see her, just let me know. So that she may see you and take you to the bottom of the river, never, Mr. Benito. She believes it, shouted Minha. There are people who believe in the trunk of Maneos, the Fragoso, always ready to intervene on behalf of Lina. The trunk of Maneos asked Manuel. What about the trunk of Maneos? Mr. Manuel answered Fragoso with coming gravity. It appears that there is, or as it formerly was, a trunk of Turuma, which every year at the same time descended the Rio Negro, stopping several days at Maneos, and going on into Para, holding at every port, where the natives ornamented it with little flags. Arrived at Belém, it came to a halt, turned back on its road, remounted the Amazon to the Rio Negro, and returned to the forest from which it had mysteriously started. One day somebody tried to drag it ashore, but the river rose in anger, and the attempt had to be given up. And on another occasion, the captain of a ship harpooned it and tried to tow it along. This time again the river, in anger, broke off the ropes and the trunk mysteriously escaped. What became of it? asked the mulatto. It appears that on its last voyage Miss Lina replied Fragoso. It mistooks the way, and instead of going up the Negro it continued into Amazon, and it has never been seen again. Oh, if we could only meet it, said Lina. If we meet it, answered Benito, we will put you on it. It will take you back to the mysterious forest, and you will likewise pass into the state of a legendary mind. And why not, asked the mulatto. So much for your legions, said Manuel, and I think your river is worthy of them. But it has also its histories, which are worth something more. And no one, and if I were not afraid of grieving you. For it is a very sad one. I would relate it. Oh, tell it by all means, Mr. Manuel, exclaimed Lina. I like stories which make you cry. What do you cry, Lina? said Benito. Yes, Mr. Benito, but I cry when laughing. Oh, well, let us save it, Manuel. It is the history of a French woman who has sorrow-threndered these banks memorable in the 18th century. We are listening, said Minya. Here goes, then, said Manuel. In 1741, at the time of the expedition of the two Frenchmen, Boguerre and Lacondamine, who were sent to measure a terrestrial degree of the equator, they were accompanied by a very distinguished astronomer, Godin de Soudonès. Godin de Soudonès set out then, but he did not set out alone, for the new world. He took with him his young wife, his children, his father-in-law, and his brother-in-law. The travelers arrived at Cuito in good health. There commenced a series of misfortunes for Madame Soudonès. In a few months she lost some of her children. When Godin de Soudonès had completed his work towards the end of the year 1759, he left Cuito and started for Cayenne. Once arrived in this town, he wanted his family to come to him. But war had been declared, and he was obliged to ask the Portuguese government for permission for a free passage for Madame Soudonès and her people. What do you think? Many years passed before the permission could be given. In 1765, Godin de Soudonès, maddened by the delay, resolved to ascend the Amazon in search of his wife at Cuito. But at the moment his departure, a sudden illness stopped him, and he could not carry out his intention. However, his application had not been useless, and Madame de Soudonès learned at last that the King of Portugal had given the necessary permission and prepared to embark and descend the river to her husband. At the same time, An escort was ordered to be ready in the missions of the upper Amazon. Madame de Soudonès was a woman of great courage, as you will see presently. She never hesitated, and notwithstanding the dangers of such a voyage across the continent, she started. It was her duty to her husband, Manuel, Sajakita, and I would have done the same. Madame de Soudonès continued Manuel, came to Rio Bamba, at the south of Cuito, bringing her brother-in-law, her children, and a French doctor. Their endeavor was to reach the missions of the Brazilian frontier, where they hoped to find a ship and the escort. The voyage at first was favorable. It was made down the tributaries of the Amazon in a canoe. The difficulties, however, gradually increased with the dangers and fatigues of a country decimated by the smallpox. Of several guides who offered their services, the most part disappeared after a few days. One of them, the last who remained faithful to the travelers, was drowned in the Bobonassa, in endeavoring to help the French doctor. At length the canoe, damaged by rocks and floating trees, became useless. It was therefore necessary to get on shore, and there, at the edge of the impenetrable forest, they built a few huts of foliage. The doctor offered to go on, in front, with a negro who had never wished to leave Madame de Soudonès. The two went off. They waited for them several days, but in vain. They never returned. In the meantime, the victors were getting exhausted. The four second ones, in vain, endeavored to descend the Bobonassa on a raft. They had to again take to the forest, and make their way on foot, through the almost impenetrable undergrowth. The fatigues were too much for the poor folks. They died off one by one, in spite of the cares of the noble French woman. At the end of a few days, children, relations, and servants were all dead. What an unfortunate woman, said Lina. Madame de Soudonès alone remained, continued Manuel. There she was, at a thousand leagues from the ocean, which she was trying to reach. It was no longer a mother who continued her journey towards the river. The mother had lost her children. She had buried them with her own hands. It was a wife who wished to see her husband once again. She traveled night and day, and at length regained the Bobonassa. She was there received by some kind-hearted Indians, who took her to the mission, where the escort was waiting. But she arrived alone, and behind her the stages of the route were marked with graves. Madame de Soudonès reached Loretto, where we were a few days back. From this Peruvian village she descended the Amazon, as we are doing at this moment. And at length she rejoined her husband, after a separation of nineteen years. Poor lady, said Mignot. Above all, poor mother, answered Jaquita. At this moment a rojo, the pilot, came up and said, Jean-Garrelle, we are off the Ronde island, we are passing the frontier. The frontier replied Jaquita. And rising he went to the side of the Jean-Garrelle, and looked long and earnestly at the Ronde island, with the waves breaking up against it. Then his hand sought his forehead, as if to read himself of some remembrance. The frontier murmured he, bowing his head by an involuntary movement. But an instant after his head was raised. And his expression was said of a man, resolved to do his duty to the last. End of chapter 11. Part 1, Chapter 12 of 800 Leagues on the Amazon. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by Luke Harrison. 800 Leagues on the Amazon by Jules Verne. Part 1, The Giant Raft. Chapter 12, Fragoso at Work. Braza, burning embers, is a word found in the Spanish language as far back as the 12th century. It has been used to make the word brazil, as descriptive of certain woods which yield a reddish dye. From this has come the name brazil, given to that vast district of South America which is crossed by the equator, and in which these products are so frequently met with. In very early days, these woods were the object of considerable trade. Although correctly called Ibirapitunga from the place of production, the name of Brazil stuck to them, and it has become that of the country, which seems like an immense heap of embers lighted by the rays of the tropical sun. Brazil was from the first occupied by the Portuguese. About the commencement of the 16th century, Alvarez Cabral, the pilot, took possession of it, and although France and Holland partially established themselves there, it has remained Portuguese, and has all the qualities which distinguish that gallant little nation. It is today the largest state of South America, and has at its head the intelligent artist king Dom Pedro. What is your privilege in the tribe, asked Montaigne of an Indian whom you met at Arv. The privilege of marching first to battle, innocently answered the Indian. War we know was for a long time the surest and most rapid vehicle of civilisation. The Brazilians did what this Indian did. They fought, they defended their conquests, they enlarged them, and we see them marching in the first rank of the civilising advance. It was in 1824, 16 years after the foundation of the Portugo Brazilian Empire, that Brazil proclaimed its independence by the voice of Don Juan, whom the French armies had chased from Portugal. It remained only to define the frontier between the new empire and that of its neighbour, Peru. This was no easy matter. If Brazil wished to extend the Rio Napo in the west, Peru attempted to reach eight degrees further, as far as the Lake of Ega. But in the meantime, Brazil had to interfere to hinder the kidnapping of the Indians from the Amazon, a practice which was engaged in much to the profit of the Hispano-Brazilian missions. There was no better method of checking this trade than that of fortifying the island of the Ronde, a little above Tabatinga, and there establishing a post. This afforded the solution, and from that time the frontier of the two countries passed through the middle of this island. Above, the river is Peruvian, and is called the Mara Uon, as has been said, below it is Brazilian and takes the name of the Amazon. It was on the evening of the 25th of June that the Gengar had stopped before Tabatinga, the first Brazilian town situated on the left bank, at the entrance of the river of which it bears the name, and belonged to the parish of Saint Paul, established on the right, a little further downstream. Jean-Garral had decided to pass 36 hours here, so as to give a little rest to the crew. They would not start there for, until the morning of the 27th. On this occasion, Yorquita and her children, less likely perhaps than at a Kitos to be fed upon by the native mosquitoes, had announced their attention of going on a shore and visiting the town. The population of Tabatinga is estimated at 400, nearly all Indians, comprising no doubt many of those wandering families who were never settled at particular spots on the banks of the Amazon, or its smaller tributaries. The post at the island of the Rond has been abandoned for some years, and transferred to Tabatinga. It can thus be called a garrison town, but the garrison is only composed of nine soldiers, nearly all Indians, and a sergeant who is the actual commandant of the place. A bank about 30 feet high, in which are cut the steps of a not very solid staircase, forms here the cursant of the Esplanade, which carries the pygmy fort. The house of the commandant consists of a couple of huts placed in a square, and the soldiers occupy an oblong building a hundred feet away, at the foot of a large tree. The collection of cabins exactly resembles all the villages and hamlets which are scattered along the banks of the river, although in them a flagstaff carrying the building colors does not rise above a century box, forever destitute of its sentinel, nor a four small mortars present to Canaanade on an emergency any vessel which does not come in when ordered. As for the village proper, so-called, it is situated below at the base of the plateau. A road, which is but a ravine shaded by ficces and meritus, leads to it in a few minutes. There, on a half-cracked hill of clay, stand the dozen houses covered with the leaves of the Boyasu Palm, placed round a central space. All this is not very curious, but the environs of Tabatinga are charming, particularly at the mouth of the Javari, which is of sufficient extent to contain the arch-pelago of the Aramasa Islands. Hereabouts are grouped many fine trees and, among them, a large number of the palms, whose several fibres are used in the fabrication of hammocks and fishing nets, another cause of some trade. To conclude, the place is one of the most picturesque on the upper Amazon. Tabatinga is destined to become, before long, a station of some importance, and will no doubt rapidly develop, for there will stop the Brazilian steamers which ascend the river and the Peruvian steamers which descend it. There they will transit passengers and cargoes. It does not require much for an English or American village to become, in a few years, the centre of considerable commerce. The river is very beautiful along this part of its course. The influence of ordinary tides is not perceptible at Tabatinga, which is more than 600 leagues from the Atlantic. But it is not so with the Poraroka, that species of eddy, which, for three days in the height of the Sisigis, raises the waters of the Amazon, and turns them back at the rate of 17 kilometres per hour. They say that the effects of this bore are felt up to the Brazilian frontier. On the morrow, the 26th of June, the Garral family prepared to go off and visit the village. Though Joan, Benito and Manuel had already set foot in a Brazilian town, it was otherwise with Yakita and her daughter. For them it was, so to speak, a taking possession. It is conceivable, therefore, that Yakita and Mina should attach some importance to the event. If, on his part, Fragoso, in his capacity of wandering Barba, had already run through the different provinces of South America, Lena, like her young mistress, had never been on Brazilian soil. But before leaving the Jangada, Fragoso had sought Joan Garral, and had the following conversation with him. Mr. Garral, said he, from the day when you received me at the Fazenda of Iquitos, lodged, clothed, fed, in a word, took me in so hospitably, I have owed you. You owe me absolutely nothing, my friend, answered Joan, so do not insist. Oh, do not be alarmed, exclaimed Fragoso. I am not going to pay it off. Let me add, that you took me on board the Jangada and gave me the means of descending the river. But here we are on the soil of Brazil, which, according to all probability, I ought never to have seen again. Without that, Liana. It is to Lena, and to Lena alone, that you should tender your thanks, said Joan. I know, said Fragoso, and I will never forget what I owe her, any more than what I owe you. They tell me, Fragoso, continued Joan, that you are going to say goodbye and intend to remain at Tabatinga. By no means, Mr. Garal, since you have allowed me to accompany you to Belem, where I hope at the least to be able to resume my old trade. Well, if that is your intention, what were you going to ask me? I was going to ask if you saw any inconvenience in my working at my profession on our route. There is no necessity for my hand to rust, and besides, a few handfuls of rice would not be so bad at the bottom of my pocket, more particularly if I had earned them. You know Mr. Garal is a barber, who is also a hairdresser, and I hardly like to say a doctor out of respect to Mr. Manuel. Always finds customers in these upper Amazon villages. Particularly among the Brazilians, answered Joan. As for the natives, I beg pardon, replied Fragoso. Particularly among the natives. Ah, although there is no beard trim, for nature has been very stingy toward them in that way. There are always some heads of hair to be dressed in the latest fashion. They are very fond of it, these savages, both the men and the women. I shall not be installed ten minutes in the square at Tabatinga with my cup and ball in hand, the cup and ball I have brought on board, and which I can manage with pretty pleasantly, before a circle of braves and squaws will have formed around me. They will struggle for my favours, I could remain here for a month, and the whole tribe of the ticunas would come to me to have their hair looked after. They won't hesitate to make the acquaintance of curling tongs, that is what they will call me, if I revisit the wars of Tabatinga. I have already had two tries here, and my scissors and comb have done marbles. It does not do to return too often on the same track. The Indian ladies don't have their hair curled every day, like the beauties of our Brazilian cities. No, when it is done, it is done for a year, during the twelfth month, they will take every care not to endanger the edifice which I have raised, with what talent I dare not say. Now it is nearly a year since I was at Tabatinga, I go to find my monuments in ruins, and if it is not objectionable to you, Mr. Gural, I would render myself again worthy of the reputation which I have acquired in these parts. The question of race, and not that of conceit, being you understand the principle. Go on then, my friend, replied Gural, laughingly, but be quick, we can only remain a day at Tabatinga, and we shall start tomorrow at dawn. I will not lose a minute, answered Fragoso. Just time to take the tools of my profession, and I am off. Off you go, Fragoso, said Gural, and may the race reign into your pocket. Yes, and that is a proper sort of reign, and there can never be too much of it for your obedient servant. And so saying, Fragoso rapidly moved away. A moment afterward, the family, with the exception of Jorm, went ashore. The Jangada was able to approach near enough to the bank for the landing to take place without much trouble. A staircase, in a miserable state, cutting the cliff, allowed the visitors to arrive on the crest of the plateau. Yorkeeta and her party were received by the commandant of the fort, a poor fellow who, however, knew the laws of hospitality, and offered them some breakfast in his cottage. Here and there, past and repast several soldiers on guard, whereon the threshold of the barrack appeared a few children, with their mothers of tikuna blood, affording very poor specimens of the mixed race. In place of accepting the breakfast of the sergeant, Yorkeeta invited the commandant and his wife to come and have theirs on board the Jangada. The commandant did not wait for a second invitation, and an appointment was made for 11 o'clock. In the meantime, Yorkeeta, her daughter, and the young mulatto, accompanied by Manowell, went for a walk in the neighbourhood, leaving Benito to settle with the commandant about the tolls, he being chief of the custom house, as well as of the military establishment. That done, Benito, as was his want, strolled off with his gun into the adjoining woods. On this occasion, Manowell had declined to accompany him. Fragoso had left the Jangada, but instead of mounting to the fort, he had made for the village, crossing the ravine which led off from the right on the level of the bank. He reckoned more on the native custom of Tabatinga than on that of the garrison. Doubtless the soldiers' wives would not have wished better than to have been put under his hands, but the husbands scarcely cared to part with a few race for the sake of gratifying the whims of their kaketish partners. Among the natives, it was quite the reverse. Husband Dan wives, the jolly barber knew them well, and he knew they would give him a better reception. Behold then, Fragoso on the road, coming up the shady lane beneath the ficces, and arriving in the central square of Tabatinga. As soon as he set foot in the place, the famous barber was signalled, recognised, surrounded. Fragoso had no big box, no drum, nor cornet to attract the attention of his clients, not even a carriage of shining copper with resplendent lamps and ornamented glass panels, nor a huge parasol, nor anything whatever to impress the public, as they generally have at fairs. No but Fragoso had his cup and ball, and how that cup and ball were manipulated between his fingers. With what address did he receive the turtle's head, which did for the ball, on the pointed end of the stick? With what grace did he make the ball describe some learned curve of which the mathematicians have not yet calculated the value, even those who have determined the wondrous curve of the dog who follows his master? Every native was there, men, women, the old and the young, in their nearly primitive costume, looking on with all their eyes, listening with all their ears. The smiling entertainer, half in Portuguese, half into Kunian, favoured them with his custom remuneration in a tone of the most rollicking good humour. What he said was what is said by all the charlatans who place their services at the public disposal, whether they be Spanish Figueroes or French Peruquiez, at the bottom the same self-possession, the same knowledge of human weakness, the same description of threadbare witticisms, the same amusing dexterity, and, on the part of the natives, the same wide-mouth astonishment, the same curiosity, the same credulity as the simple folk of the civilised world. It followed then that ten minutes later the public were completely won, and crowded round Fragoso, who was installed in a locha of the place, a sort of serving bar to the inn. The locha belonged to a Brazilian, settled at Tabatinga, there for a few vatims, which are the souls of the country, and worth about twenty race, or half a dozen Sontimes each, the natives could get drinks of the crudest, and particularly assai, a liquor, half solid, half liquid, made of the fruit of the palm tree, and drunk from a kui, or half calabash, in general use in this district of the Amazon. And then men and women with equal eagerness took their places on the barber's stool. The scissors of Fragoso had little to do, for it was not a question of cutting these wealthy heads of hair, nearly all remarkable for their softness and their quality, but the use to which he could put his comb and the tongs, which were kept warming in the corner in Apprasia. And then the encouragements of the artists of the crowd. Look here, look here, said he. How will that do, my friends, if you don't sleep on the top of it? There you are, for a twelve month, at these the latest novelties from Bellem and Rio de Janeiro, the queen's maids of honour are not more cleverly decked out, and observe I am not stingy with the pomade. No, he was not stingy with it. True, it was only a little grease with which he had mixed some of the juices of a few flowers, but he plastered it on like cement. And as to the names of the capillary edifices, for the monuments rid by the hands of Fragoso were of every order of architecture. Buckles, rings, clubs, tresses, crimpings, rolls, corkscrews, curls, everything found there a place, nothing false, no towers, no chignons, no shams. These heads were not enfeebled by cuttings, nor thinned by fallings off, but were forests in all their native virginity. Fragoso, however, was not above adding a few natural flowers, two or three long fish bones, and some fine bone or copper ornaments which were brought him by the dandies of the district. Assuredly, the exquisites of the directory would have envied the arrangement of these Hayat Quafures, three and four storeys high, and the great Leonhard himself would have barred before his transatlantic rival. And then the vatims, the handfuls of race, the only coins for which the natives of the Amazon exchanged their goods, which reigned into the pocket of Fragoso, and which he collected with evident satisfaction. But assuredly night would come before he could satisfy the demands of the customers who were so constantly renewed. It was not only the population of Tabatinga which crowded the door of the locha. The news of the arrival of Fragoso was not slow to get abroad. Natives came to him from all sides, Tikunas from the left bank of the river, Mayarunas from the right bank, as well as all those who live on the Kajuru, and those who come from the villages of the Javari. A long array of anxious ones formed itself in the square. The happy ones coming from the hands of Fragoso went proudly from one house to another, showing themselves off without daring to shake themselves, like the big children that they were. It does happen that when noon came the much occupied barber had not had time to return on board, but had had to content himself with a little assai, some manioc flower, and turtle eggs, which he rapidly devoured between two applications of the curling tongs. But it was a great harvest for the innkeeper, as all the operations could not be conducting without a large absorption of liquors drawn from the cellars of the inn. In fact it was an event for the town of Tabatinga, this visit of the celebrated Fragoso, barber in ordinary and extraordinary to the tribes of the upper Amazon.