 Part 1. CHAPTER I. OF 800 LEAGUE'S 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 LEAGUE'S ON THE AMAZON. By Jules Verne. Part 1. The Giant Raft. Chapter 1. A Captain of the Woods. P-H-Y-J-S-L-Y-D-D-Q-F-D. Z-X-G-A-S-G-Z-Z-Q-Q-E-H-X-G-K-F-N-D-R-X-U-J. U-G-I-O-C-Y-T-D-X-V-K-S-B-X-H-H-U-Y-P-O-H-D-V-Y-R-Y-M-H-U-H-P-U-Y-D-K. J-O-X-P-H-E-T-O-Z-L-S-L-E-T-N-P-M-V-F-F-O-V-P-D-P-A-J-X-H-Y-Y-N-O-J-Y. G-G-A-Y-M-E-Q-Y-N-F-O-Q-L-N-M-V-L-Y-F-G-S-U-Z-M-Q-I-Z-T-L-B-Q-Q-Y-U-G-S-Q-E-U-B-V-N-R-C-R-E-D. G-R-U-Z-B-L-R-M-X-Y-U-H-Q-H-P-Z-D-R-R-G-C-R-O-H-E-P-Q-X-U-F-I-V-V-R-P-L-P-H-O-N-T-H-V-D-D-Q-F-H-Q-S-N-T-Z H-H-H-N-F-E-P-M-Q-K-Y-U-U-E-X-K-T-O-G-Z-G-K-Y-U-U-M-F-V-I-J-D-Q-D-P-Z-J-Q-S-Y-K-R-P-L-X-H-X-Q-R-Y-M-V-K-L-G-S-U-Z-M-Q-S-U-S-U-Z-M-Q-S-U-S-U-S-U-S-U-S-U-S-U-S-U-S-U-S-U-S-U-S-U-S-U-S-U-S-U-S-U-S-U-S-U-S-U-S-S-U-S-U-S-U-S-U O-H-H-H-O-T-O-Z-V-D-K-S-P-P-S-U-V-J-H-D The man who held in his hand the document of which this strange assemblage of letters formed the concluding paragraph remained for some moments lost in thought. It contained about a hundred of these lines, with the letters at even distances and undivided into words. It seemed to have been written many years before, and Time had already laid his tawny finger on the sheet of good stout paper which was covered with the hieroglyphics. On what principle had these letters been arranged? He who held the paper was alone able to tell. With such cypher language it is as with the locks of some of our iron safes. In either case the protection is the same. The combinations which they lead to can be counted by millions, and no calculator's life would suffice to express them. Some particular word has to be known before the lock of the safe will act, and some cypher is necessary before that cryptogram can be read. He who had just re-perused the document was but a simple captain of the woods. Under the name of Capiteis do Mato are known in Brazil, those individuals who are engaged in the recapture of fugitive slaves. The institution dates from 1722. At that period anti-slavery ideas had entered the minds of a few philanthropists, and more than a century had to elapse before the mass of the people grasped and applied them. That freedom was a right, that the very first of the natural rights of man was to be free and to belong only to himself would seem to be self-evident, and yet thousands of years had to pass before the glorious thought was generally accepted, and the nations of the earth had the courage to proclaim it. In 1852, the year in which our story opens, there were still slaves in Brazil, and as a natural consequence, captains of the woods to pursue them. For certain reasons of political economy the hour of general emancipation had been delayed, but the black had at this date the right to ransom himself. The children which were born to him were born free. The day was not far distant when the magnificent country, into which could be put three-quarters of the continent of Europe, would no longer count a single slave among its ten millions of inhabitants. The occupation of the captains of the woods was doomed, and at the period we speak of, the advantages obtainable from the capture of fugitives were rapidly diminishing. While, however, the calling continued sufficiently profitable, the captains of the woods formed a peculiar class of adventurers, principally composed of freedmen and deserters, of not very enviable reputation. The slave-hunters, in fact, belonged to the dregs of society, and we shall not be far wrong in assuming that the man with a cryptogram was a fitting comrade for his fellow Capiteis Dumato. Torres, for that was his name, unlike the majority of his companions, was neither half-breed, Indian, nor Negro. He was a white of Brazilian origin, and had received a better education than befitted his present condition. One of those unclassed men who were found so frequently in the distant countries of the New World, at a time when the Brazilian law still excluded malaros and others of mixed blood from certain employments, it was evident that if such exclusion had affected him, it had done so on account of his worthless character, and not because of his birth. Torres, at the present moment, was not, however, in Brazil. He had just passed the frontier and was wandering in the forests of Peru, from which issue the waters of the upper Amazon. He was a man of about thirty years of age, on whom the fatigues of a precarious existence seemed, thanks to an exceptional temperament and an iron constitution, to have had no effect. Of middle height, broad shoulders, regular features, and decided gait, his face was tanned with the scorching air of the tropics. He had a thick black beard, and eyes lost under contracting eyebrows, giving that swift but hard glance so characteristic of insolent natures. Clothed as back woodsmen are generally clothed, not over elaborately, his garments bore witness to long and roughish wear. On his head, stuck jauntily on one side, was a leather hat with a large brim. Trousers he had, of course, wool, which were tucked into the tops of the thick heavy boots, which formed the most substantial part of his attire, and overall, and hiding all, was a faded yellowish poncho. But if Torres was a captain of the woods, it was evident that he was not now employed in that capacity, his means of attack and defense being obviously insufficient for anyone engaged in the pursuit of the blacks. No firearms, neither gun nor revolver. In his belt, only one of those weapons more soared than the hunting knife, called a manchetta. And in addition, he had an inshada, which is a sort of hoe, especially employed in the pursuit of the tattoos and agoutis, which abound in the forests of the upper Amazon, where there is generally little to fear from wild beasts. On the 4th of May, 1852 it happened, then, that our adventurer was deeply absorbed in the reading of the document on which his eyes were fixed, and accustomed as he was to live in the forests of South America, he was perfectly indifferent to their splendours. Nothing could distract his attention, neither the constant cry of the howling monkeys, which St. Hilaire has graphically compared to the axe of the woodman as he strikes the branches of the trees, nor the sharp jingle of the rings of the rattlesnake. Not an aggressive reptile, it is true, but one of the most venomous. Neither the bawling voice of the horned toad, the most hideous of its kind, nor even the solemn and sonorous croak of the bellowing frog, which, though it cannot equal the bull in size, can surpass him in noise. Torres heard nothing of all these sounds, which form, as it were, the complex voice of the forests of the New World. Reclining at the foot of a magnificent tree, he did not even admire the lofty boughs of that baufehu, or iron wood, with its somber bark, hard as the metal which it replaces in the weapon and the utensil of the Indian savage. No, lost in thought the captain of the woods turned the curious paper again and again between his fingers. With the cipher of which he had the secret, he assigned to each letter its true value. He read, he verified the sense of those lines, unintelligible to all but him, and then he smiled, and a most unpleasant smile it was. Then he murmured some phrases in an undertone which none in the solitude of the Peruvian forests could hear, and which no one, had he been anywhere else, would have heard. Yes, said he at length. Here are a hundred lines very neatly written which, for someone that I know, have an importance that is undoubted. That somebody is rich. It is a question of life or death for him, and looked at in every way it will cost him something, and scrutinizing the paper with greedy eyes. At a kantu only for each word of this last sentence it will amount to a considerable sum, and it is this sentence which fixes the price. It sums up the entire document. It gives their true names to true personages, but before trying to understand it, I ought to begin by counting the number of words it contains, and even when this is done its true meaning may be missed. Insane this, Torres began to count mentally. There are fifty-eight words, and that makes fifty-eight contus. With nothing but that one could live in Brazil, in America, wherever one wished, and even live without doing anything. And what would it be, then, if all the words of this document were paid for at the same price? It would be necessary to count by hundreds of contus. Ah, there is quite a fortune here for me to realize if I am not the greatest of duffers. It seemed as though the hands of Torres felt the enormous sum, and were already closing over the rolls of gold. Suddenly his thoughts took another turn. At length, he cried, I see land, and I do not regret the voyage which has led me from the coast of the Atlantic to the upper Amazon. But this man may quit America and go beyond the seas, and then how can I touch him? But no, he is there, and if I climb to the top of this tree I can see the roof under which he lives with his family. Then, seizing the paper and shaking it with terrible meaning, before tomorrow I will be in his presence, before tomorrow he will know that his honor and his life are contained in these lines, and when he wishes to see the cipher which permits him to read them, he, well, he will pay for it. He will pay if I wish it with all his fortune, as he ought to pay with all his blood. Ah, my worthy comrade, who gave me the cipher, who told me where I could find his old colleague, and the name under which he has been hiding himself for so many years, hardly suspects that he has made my fortune. For the last time Torres glanced over the yellow paper, and then, after carefully folding it, put it away into a little copper box which he used for a purse. This box was about as big as a cigar-case, and if what was in it was all Torres possessed, he would know where have been considered a wealthy man. He had a few of all the coins of the neighboring states. Ten double condors and gold of the United States of Columbia, worth about a hundred francs. Brazilian hay-ice, worth about as much. Golden soles of Peru, worth, say, double. Some Chilean escudos, worth fifty francs or more, and some smaller coins. But the lot would not amount to more than five hundred francs, and Torres would have been somewhat embarrassed had he been asked how or where he had got them. One thing was certain, that for some months, after having suddenly abandoned the trade of the slave-hunter, which he carried on in the province of Pará, Torres had ascended the basin of the Amazon, crossed the Brazilian frontier, and come into Peruvian territory. To such a man the necessities of life were but few. Expenses he had none, nothing for his lodging, nothing for his clothes. The forest provided his food, which in the backwoods cost him not. A few hay-ice were enough for his tobacco, which he bought at the mission stations or in the villages, and for a trifle more he filled his flask with liquor. With little he could go far. When he had pushed the paper into the metal box of which the lid shut tightly with a snap, Torres, instead of putting it into the pocket of his under-vest, thought to be extra-careful, and placed it near him in a hollow of a root of the tree beneath which he was sitting. This proceeding, as it turned out, might have cost him dear. It was very warm, the air was oppressive. If the church of the nearest village had possessed a clock, the clock would have struck too, and, coming with the wind, Torres would have heard it, for it was not more than a couple of miles off. But he cared not as to time. Acustom to regulate his proceedings by the height of the sun, calculated with more or less accuracy, he could scarcely be supposed to conduct himself with military precision. He breakfasted or dined when he pleased, or when he could. He slept when, and where, sleep overtook him. If his table was not always spread, his bed was always ready at the foot of some tree in the open forest. And in other respects, Torres was not difficult to please. He had travelled during most of the morning, and having already eaten a little, he began to feel the want of a snooze. Two or three hours rest would, he thought, put him in a state to continue his road, and so he laid himself down on the grass as comfortably as he could, and waited for sleep beneath the ironwood tree. Torres was not one of those people who drop off to sleep without certain preliminaries. He was in the habit of drinking a drop or two of strong liquor, and of then smoking a pipe. The spirits, he said, overexcited the brain, and the tobacco smoke agreeably mingled with the general haziness of his reverie. Torres commenced then by applying to his lips a flask which he carried to his side. It contained the liquor, generally known under the name of Chika in Peru, and more particularly under that of Kaisuma in the upper Amazon, to which fermented distillation of the root of the sweet manioc. The captain had added a good dose of taffia, or native rum. When Torres had drunk a little of this mixture, he shook the flask, and discovered, not without regret, that it was nearly empty. Must get some more, he said very quietly. Then, taken out a short wooden pipe, he filled it with a coarse and bitter tobacco of Brazil, of which the leaves belonged to that old Petum, introduced into France by Nico, to whom we owe the popularization of the most productive and widespread of the Solonaceae. This native tobacco had little in common with the fine qualities of our present manufacturers, but Torres was not more difficult to please in this manner than in others. And so, having filled his pipe, he struck a match and applied the flame to a piece of that stick substance which is the secretion of certain of the hymenoptera, and is known as Anse Amadou. With the Amadou he lighted up, and after about a dozen whiffs his eyes closed, his pipe escaped from his fingers, and he fell asleep. CHAPTER II robber, and robbed. Torres slept for about half an hour, and then there was a noise among the trees, a sound of light footsteps, as though some visitor was walking with naked feet, and taking all the precaution he could lest he should be heard. To have put himself on guard against any suspicious approach would have been the first care of her adventurer had his eyes been open at the time, but he had not then awoke, and what advanced was able to arrive in his presence, at ten paces from the tree without being perceived. It was not a man at all, it was a gariba. Of all the prehensile-tilled monkeys which haunt the forest of the upper Amazon, graceful sahais, horned sapid joys, gray-coated monos, sanguins which seemed to wear a mask on their grimacing faces, the garuba is without a doubt the most eccentric. Of sociable disposition, and not very savage, differing therein, very greatly, from the makura, who is as ferocious as he is foul. He delights in company, and generally travels in troops. It was he whose presence had been signalled from afar by the monotonous concert of voices, so like the psalm singing of some church choir. But if nature has not made him vicious, it is nonetheless necessary to attack him with caution, and, under any circumstances, a sleeping traveller ought not to leave himself exposed, lest a gariba should surprise him when he is not in a position to defend himself. This monkey, which is also known in Brazil, as a barbedo, was of large size. The suppleness and stoutness of his limbs proclaimed him a powerful creature, as fit to fight on the ground as to leap from branch to branch at the tops of the giants of the forest. He advanced then cautiously, and with short steps. He glanced to the right and to the left, and rapidly swung his tail. To these representatives of the monkey-tribe, nature has not been content to give four hands. She has shown herself more generous, and added a fifth, for the extremity of their caudal, appendage, possesses a perfect power of prehension. The garuba noiselessly approached, brandishing a sturdy caudal, which, yielded by his muscular arm, would have proved a formidable weapon. For some minutes he had seen the man at the foot of the tree, but the sleeper did not move, and this, doubtless, induced him to come and look at him a little nearer. He came forward then, not without hesitation, and stopped at last about three paces off. On his bearded face was pictured a grin which showed his sharp-edged teeth, white as ivory, and the caudal began to move about in a way that was not very reassuring for the captain of the woods. Unmistakably the sight of Torres did not inspire the garuba with friendly thoughts. Had he then particular reasons for wishing evil to this defenceless specimen of the human race which Chance had delivered over to him, perhaps we know how certain animals retain the memory of the bad treatment they have received, and it is possible that against back woodsmen in general he bore some special grudge. In fact Indians especially make more fuss about the monkey than any other kind of game, and no matter to what species it belongs, follow its chase with the ardor of nimrods, not only for the pleasure of hunting it, but for the pleasure of eating it. However it was the garuba did not seem disinclined to change characters this time, and if he did not quite forget that nature had made him but a simple herbivore, and longed to devour the captain of the woods, he seemed at least to have made up his mind to get rid of one of his natural enemies. After looking at him for some minutes the garuba began to move round the tree. He stepped slowly, holding his breath, and getting nearer and nearer. His attitude was threatening, his countenance ferocious. Nothing could have seemed easier to him than to have crushed this motionless man at a single blow, and assuredly at that moment the life of Therese hung by a thread. In truth the garuba stopped a second time, close up to the tree, placed himself at the side so as to command the head of the sleeper, and lifted his stick to give the blow. But if Therese had been imprudent in putting near him in the crevice of the root, the little case which contained his document and his fortune, it was this imprudence which saved his life. A sunbeam shooting between the branches just glinted on the case, the polished metal of which lighted up like a looking-glass. The monkey, with the frivolity peculiar to his species, instantly had his attention distracted. His ideas, if such an animal could have ideas, took another direction. He stopped, caught hold of the case, jumped back a pace or two, and, raising it to the level of his eyes, looked at it, not without surprise, as he moved it about and used it like a mirror. He was, if anything, still more astonished when he heard the rattle of the gold pieces it contained. The music enchanted him. It was like a rattle in the hands of a child. He carried it to his mouth, and his teeth grated against the metal, but made no impression on it. Doubtless the Gariba thought he had found some fruit of a new kind, a sort of huge, almost brilliant all over, and with a kernel playing freely in its shell. But if he soon discovered his mistake he did not consider it a reason for throwing the case away. On the contrary, he grasped it more tightly in his left hand, and dropped the cudgel, which broke off a dry twig in its fall. At this noise Therese woke, and with the quickness of those who were always on the watch, with whom there is no transition from the sleeping to the waking state, was immediately on his legs. In an instant Therese had recognized with whom he had to deal. A Gariba, he cried, and his hand, seizing his manchetta, he put himself into a posture of defense. The monkey, alarmed, jumped back at once, and not so brave before a waking man as a sleeping one, performed a rapid caper, and glided under the trees. It was time, said Therese, the rogue would have settled me without any ceremony. Of a sudden, between the hands of the monkey, who had stopped at about twenty paces, and was watching him with violent grimaces, as if he would like to snap his fingers at him, he caught sight of his precious case. The beggar, he said, if he has not killed me he has done what is almost as bad, he has robbed me. The thought that the case held his money was not, however, what then concerned him. But that which made him jump was the recollection that it contained the precious document, the loss of which was irreparable as it carried with it all of his hopes. Botheration, said he, and at that moment cast what it might to recapture his case Therese threw himself in pursuit of the Gariba. He knew that to reach such an active animal was not easy. On the ground he could get away too fast. In the branches he could get away too far. A well-aimed gun-shot could alone stop him as he ran or climbed, but Therese possessed no firearm. His sword-knife and hoe were useless unless he could get near enough to hit him. It soon became evident that the monkey could not be reached unless by surprise. Hence Torres found it necessary to employ cunning in dealing with the mischievous animal. To stop, to hide himself behind some tree-trunk, to disappear under a bush might induce the Gariba to pull up and retrace his steps, and there was nothing else for Therese to try. This was what he did, and the pursuit commenced under these conditions. But when the captain of the woods disappeared the monkey patiently waited until he came into sight again, and at this game Therese fatigued himself without result. Then found the Gariba, he shouted at length. There will be no end to this, and he will lead me back to the Brazilian frontier. If only he would let go of my case, but no, the jingling of the money amuses him. Oh, you thief, if I could only get hold of you!" And Therese recommended the pursuit, and the monkey scuttled off with renewed vigor. An hour passed in this way without any result. Therese showed a persistency which was quite natural. How without this document could he get his money? And then anger seized him. He swore, he stamped, he threatened the Gariba. That annoying animal only responded by a chuckling which was enough to put him beside himself. And then Therese gave himself up to the chase. He ran at top speed, entangling himself in the high undergrowth, among those thick brambles and interlacing creepers across which the Gariba passed like a steeple chaser. Big roots hidden beneath the grass lay often in the way. He stumbled over them, and again started in pursuit. At length, to his astonishment, he found himself shouting, Come here, come here, you robber, as if he could make him understand him. His strength gave out, breath fell to him, and he was obliged to stop. Then found it, said he. When I am after runaway slaves across the jungle, they never give me such trouble as this. But I will have you, you wretched monkey. I will go, yes, I will go, as far as my legs will carry me, and we shall see." The Gariba had remained motionless when he saw that the adventurer had ceased to pursue him. He rested also, for he had nearly reached that degree of exhaustion which had forbidden all movements on the part of Thorez. He remained like this during ten minutes, nibbling away at two or three roots which he picked off the ground, and from time to time he rattled the case at his ear. Thorez, driven to distraction, picked up the stones within his reach and threw them at him, but did no harm at such a distance. But he hesitated to make a fresh start, on one hand to keep on in chase of the monkey, with so little chance of reaching him, was madness. On the other, to accept as definite this accidental interruption to all his plans, to be not only conquered, but cheated and hoaxed by a dumb animal, was maddening. And in the meantime Thorez began to think that when the night came the robber would disappear without trouble, and he, the robbed one, would find difficulty in retracing his way through the dense forest. In fact the pursuit had taken him many miles from the bank of the river, and he would even now find it difficult to return to it. Thorez hastened. He tried to resume his thoughts with coolness, and finally, after giving vent to a last implication, he was about to abandon all idea of regaining possession of his case, when once more in spite of himself there flashed across him the thought of his document, the remembrance of all that scaffolding on which his future hopes depended, on which he had counted so much, and he resolved to make another effort. Then he got up. The Gariba got up too. He made several steps in advance. The monkey made as many in the rear, but this time, instead of plunging more deeply into the forest, he stopped at the foot of an enormous ficus, the tree of which the different kinds are so numerous all over the upper Amazon basin. To seize the trunk with his forehands, to climb with the agility of a clown who is acting the monkey, to hook on with his prehensile tail to the first branches which stretched away horizontally at forty feet from the ground, and to hoist himself to the top of the tree, to the point where the higher branches just bent beneath its weight, was only sport to the act of Gariba, and the work of but a few seconds. Up there, installed at his ease, he resumed his interrupted repast, and gathered the fruits which were within his reach. Torres, like him, was much in want of something to eat and drink, but it was impossible. His poach was flat, his flask was empty. However, instead of retracing his steps, he directed them toward the tree, although the position taken up by the monkey was still more unfavorable for him. He could not dream for one instant of climbing the ficus, which the thief would have quickly abandoned for another. And all the time the miserable case rattled at his ear. Then in his fury, in his folly, Torres apostrophized the Gariba. It would be impossible for us to tell the series of invectives in which he indulged. Not only did he call him a half-breed, which is the greatest of insults in the mouth of a Brazilian of white descent, but Curibocca, that is, to say, half-breed Negro and Indian, and of all the insults that one man can hurl at another in this equatorial attitude, Curibocca is the cruelest. But the monkey, who was only a humble quadruman, was simply amused at what would have revolted a representative of humanity. Then Torres began to throw stones at him again, and bits of roots and everything he could get hold of, that would do for a missile. Had he the hope to seriously hurt the monkey? No. He no longer knew what he was about, to tell the truth. Anger at his powerlessness had deprived him of his wits. He hoped that in one of the movements which the Gariba would make, in passing from branch to branch, the case might escape him. Perhaps he thought that if he continued to worry the monkey, he might throw it at his head. But no, the monkey did not part with the case, and holding it with one hand, he still had three left, with which to move. Torres, in despair, was just about to abandon the chase for good, and to return toward the Amazon, when he heard the sound of voices. Yes, the sound of human voices. Those were speaking at about twenty paces to the right of him. The first care of Torres was to hide himself in a dense thicket. Like a prudent man, he did not wish to show himself without at least knowing with whom he might have to deal. Panting puzzled his ears on the stretch. He waited, when suddenly the sharp report of a gun rang through the woods. A cry followed, and the monkey, mortally wounded, fell heavily on the ground, still holding Torres's case. By Jove, he muttered, that bullet came at the right time. And then, without fearing to be seen, he came out of the thicket, and two young gentlemen appeared from under the trees. They were Brazilians, clothed as hunters, with leather boots, light palm leaf hats, waistcoats, or rather tunics, buckled in at the waist, and more convenient than the national poncho. By their features and their complexion, they were at once recognizable as of Portuguese descent. Each of them was armed with one of those long guns of Spanish make, which slightly remind us of the arms of the Arabs. Arms of long range and considerable precision, which the dwellers in the forest of the upper Amazon handle with success. What had just happened was a proof of this. At an angular distance of more than eighty paces, the quadsruman had been shot full in the head. The two young men carried in addition, in their belts, a sort of dagger-knife, which is known in Brazil as a foca, and which hunters do not hesitate to use when attacking the ounce, and other wild animals which, if not very formidable, are pretty numerous in these forests. Torres had obviously little to fear from this meeting, and so he went on running toward the monkey's corpse. But the young men, who were taking the same direction, had less ground to cover, and coming forward a few paces found themselves face to face with Torres. The latter had recovered his presence of mind. "'Many thanks, gentlemen,' he said gaily, as he raised the brim of his hat, in killing this wretched animal, you have just done me a great service.' The hunters looked at him inquiringly, not knowing what value to attach to his thanks. Torres explained the matters in a few words. "'You thought you had killed a monkey,' said he, but as it happens you have killed a thief. "'If we have been abused to you,' said the youngest of the two, it was by accident, but we are nonetheless pleased to find that we have done some good.' And taking several steps to the rear, he bent over the gariba, and not, without an effort, withdrew the case from his stiffened hand. "'Doubtless that, sir, is what belongs to you.' "'The very thing,' said Torres briskly, catching hold of the case, and failing to repress a huge sigh of relief. "'Whom ought I to thank, gentlemen?' said he, for the service you have rendered me.' "'My friend, Manuel, assistant surgeon, Brazilian army,' replied the young man. "'If it was I who shot the monkey, Benito,' said Manuel, it was you that pointed him out to me. "'In that case, sirs,' replied Torres, I am under an obligation to you both, as well as to you, Mr. Manuel, and to you, Mr.' Benito Garrel,' replied Manuel. The captain of the woods required great command over himself to avoid giving a chump when he heard this name, and more especially when the young man obligingly continued. My father, Joam Garrel, has his farm about three miles from here. If you would like, Mr. Torres,' replied the adventurer, "'if you would like to accompany us there, Mr. Torres, you will be hospitably received.' "'I do not know that I can,' said Torres, who, surprised by this unexpected meeting, hesitated to make a start. I fear in truth that I am not able to accept your offer. The occurrence I have just related to you has caused me to lose time. It is necessary for me to return at once to the Amazon, as I propose descending thence to Para.' "'Very well, Mr. Torres,' replied Benito. It is not unlikely that we shall see you again in our travels, for before a month has passed my father and all his family will have taken the same road as you.' "'Ah,' said Torres sharply, your father is thinking of recasting the Brazillian frontier?' "'Yes, for a voyage of some months,' replied Benito. At least we hope to make him decide so. Don't we, Manuel?' "'Menuel, nodded affirmatively.' "'Well, gentlemen,' replied Torres, "'it is very probable that we shall meet again on the road. But I cannot, much to my regret, accept your offer now. I thank you nevertheless, and I consider myself as twice your debtor.' And having said so, Torres saluted the young man, who in turn saluted him, and set on their way to their farm. As for Torres, he looked after them as they got further and further away, and when he had lost sight of them. "'Ah, he is about to recross the frontier,' said he, with a deep voice, let him recross it, and he will be still more at my mercy. Pleasant journey to you, Joram Carahel!' And having uttered these words, the captain of the woods, making for the south so as to regain the left bank of the river, by the shortest road, disappeared into the dense forest." End of chapter 2 Chapter 3 The Garral family. The village of Iquitos is situated on the left bank of the Amazon, near the seventy-fourth meridian, on that portion of the Great River which still bears the name of the Maranon, and of which the bed separates Peru from the Republic of Ecuador. It is about fifty-five leagues to the west of the Brazilian frontier. Iquitos, like every other collection of huts, hamlet, or village, met with in the basin of the upper Amazon, was founded by the missionaries. Up to the seventeenth year of the century, the Iquitos Indians, who then formed the entire population, were settled in the interior of the province at some distance from the river. But one day, the springs in their territory all dried up under the influence of a volcanic eruption, and they were obliged to come and take up their abode on the left of the Maranon. The race soon altered through the alliances which were entered into with the riverine Indians, Chicunas or Omaguas, mixed ascent with a few Spaniards, and today Iquitos has a population of two or three families of half-breeds. The village is most picturesquely grouped on a kind of esplanade, and runs along at about sixty feet from the river. It consists of some forty miserable huts, whose thatched roofs only just render them worthy of the name of cottages. A stairway made of cross trunks of trees leads up to the village, which lies hidden from the traveller's eyes until the steps have been ascended. Once at the top he finds himself before an enclosure, admitting of slight defence, and consisting of many different shrubs and arborescent plants, attached to each other by festoons of lianas, which here and there have made their way above the summits of the graceful palms and banana trees. At the time we speak of, the Indians of Iquitos went about in almost a state of nudity. The Spaniards and half-breeds alone were clothed, and much as they scorn their indigenous fellow-citizens wore only a simple shirt, light-cotton trousers, and a straw hat. All lived cheerlessly enough in the village, mixing little together, and if they did meet occasionally it was only at such times as the bell of the mission called them to the dilapidated cottage which served them for a church. But if existence in the village of Iquitos, as in most of the hamlets of the upper Amazon, was almost in a rudimentary stage, it was only necessary to journey a league further down the river to find, on the same bank, a wealthy settlement with all the elements of comfortable life. This was the farm of Zhuangarao, toward which our two young friends returned after their meeting with the captain of the woods. There on a bend of the stream, at the junction of the River Nanay, which is here about five hundred feet across, there had been established for many years this farm, homestead, or to use the expression of the country, fazenda, then in the height of its prosperity. The Nanay, with its left bank, bounded it to the north for about a mile, and for nearly the same distance to the east it ran along the bank of the larger river. To the west some small rivulets, tributaries of the Nanay, and some lagoons of small extent separated it from the savanna and the fields devoted to the pastureage of the cattle. It was here that Zhuangarao, in 1826, twenty-six years before the date when our story opens, was received by the proprietor of the fazenda. This Portuguese, whose name was Magalhaes, followed the trade of timber-felling, and his settlement then recently formed extended for about half a mile along the bank of the river. There hospitable as he was, like all the Portuguese of the old race, Magalhaes lived with his daughter Yaquita, who after the death of her mother had taken charge of his household. Magalhaes was an excellent worker, inured to fatigue, but lacking education. If he understood the management of the few slaves whom he owned, and the dozen Indians whom he hired, he showed himself much less apt in the various external requirements of his trade. In truth the establishment of the Yaquitos was not prospering, and the affairs of the Portuguese were getting somewhat embarrassed. It was under these circumstances that Zhuangarao, then twenty-two years old, found himself one day in the presence of Magalhaes. He had arrived in the country at the limit both of his strength and his resources. Magalhaes had found him half-dead with hunger and fatigue in the neighboring forest. The Portuguese had an excellent heart. He did not ask the unknown where he came from, but what he wanted. The noble high-spirited look which Zhuangarao, bore in spite of his exhaustion, had touched him. He received him, restored him, and for several days to begin with, offered him a hospitality which lasted for his life. Under such conditions it was that Zhuangarao was introduced to the farm at Yaquitos. Even by birth Zhuangarao was without family or fortune. Trouble, he said, had obliged him to quit his country and abandon all thoughts of return. He asked his host to excuse his entering on his past misfortunes. Misfortunes as serious as they were unmerited. What he sought and what he wished was a new life, a life of labour. He had started on his travels with some slight thought of entering of Hazenda in the interior. He was educated, intelligent. He had in all his bearing that inexpressible something which tells you that the man is genuine, and of frank and upright character. Magaliais was quite taken with him, and asked him to remain at the farm, where he would, in a measure, supply that which was wanting in the worthy farmer. Zhuangarao accepted the offer without hesitation. His intention had been to join a seringao, or kautrupe concern, in which in those days a good workman could earn from five to six piastres a day, and could hope to become a master if he had any luck. But Magaliais very truly observed that if the pay was good, work was only found in the seringaos at harvest time, that is to say, during only a few months of the year, and this would not constitute the permanent position that a young man ought to wish for. The Portuguese was right. Zhuangarao saw it, and entered resolutely into the service of the fazenda, deciding to devote to it all his powers. Magaliais had no cause to regret his generous action. His business recovered. His wood trade, which extended by means of the Amazon up to Pará, was soon considerably extended under the impulse of Zhuangarao. The fazenda began to grow in proportion, and to spread out along the bank of the river up to its junction with the Nanay. A delightful residence was made of the house. It was raised a story, surrounded by a veranda, and half hidden under beautiful trees, mimosas, figsicmores, baohinias, and paolinias, whose trunks were invisible beneath a network of scarlet-flowered bromelias and passion-flowers. At a distance, behind huge bushes and a dense mash of arboracent plants, were concealed the buildings in which the staff of the fazenda were accommodated. From the servants' offices, the cabins of the blacks and the huts of the Indians. From the bank of the river, bordered with reeds and aquatic plants, the tree-and-circled house was alone visible. A vast meadow, laboriously cleared along the lagoons, offered excellent pasture-age. Catala bounded, a new source of profit in these fertile countries, where a herd doubles in four years, and where ten percent interest is earned by nothing more than the skins and the hides of the animals, killed for the consumption of those who raise them. A few sitios, or manioc and coffee plantations, were started in parts of the woods which were cleared. Fields of sugar canes soon required the construction of a mill to crush the sacchariferous stalks, destined to be used hereafter in the manufacture of molasses, taffia, and rum. In short, ten years after the arrival of Juan Garau at the farm at Iquitos, the fazenda had become one of the richest establishments on the upper Amazon. Thanks to the good management exercised by the young clerk over the works at home, and the business abroad, its prosperity daily increased. The Portuguese did not wait so long to acknowledge what he owed to Juan Garau. In order to recompense him in proportion to his merits, he had from the first given him an interest in the profits of his business. In four years after his arrival he had made him a partner on the same footing as himself, and with equal shares. But there was more that he had in store for him. Iquita, his daughter, had, in this silent young man, so gentle to others, so stern to himself, recognized the sterling qualities which her father had done. She was in love with him, but though on his side Juan had not remained insensible to the merits and the beauty of this excellent girl. He was too proud and reserved to dream of asking her to marry him. A serious incident hastened the solution. Magalhaes was one day superintending the clearance, and was mortally wounded by the fall of a tree. Carried home helpless to the farm, and feeling himself lost, he raised up Iquita, who was weeping by his side, took her hand and put it into that of Juan Garau, making him swear to take her for his wife. You have my fortune, he said, and I shall not die in peace, unless by this union I know that the fortune of my daughter is assured. I can continue her devoted servant, her brother, her protector, without being her husband, Juan Garau had at first replied, I owe you all Magalhaes, I will never forget it, but the price you would pay for my endeavors is out of all proportion to what they are worth. The old man insisted. Death would not allow him to wait. He demanded the promise, and it was made to him. Iquita was then twenty-two years old. Juan was twenty-six. They loved each other, and they were married some hours before the death of Magalhaes, who had just strength left to bless their union. It was under these circumstances that in 1830 Juan Garau became the new fazender of Iquitos, to the immense satisfaction of all those who composed the staff of the farm. The prosperity of the settlement could not do otherwise than grow when these two minds were thus united. A year after her marriage Iquita presented her husband with a son, and two years after a daughter, Benito en Minha, the grandchildren of the old Portuguese, became worthy of their grandfather, children worthy of Juan Iquita. The daughter grew to be one of the most charming of girls. She never left the fazenda, brought up in pure and healthy surroundings in the midst of the beauteous nature of the tropics. The education given to her by her mother and the instruction received by her from her father were ample. What more could she have learned in a convent at Manaus or Belém? Where would she have found better examples of the domestic virtues? Would her mind and feelings have been more delicately formed away from her home? If it was ordained that she was not to succeed her mother in the management of the fazenda, she was equal to any other position to which she might be called. With Benito it was another thing. His father very wisely wished him to receive a solid and complete an education as could then be obtained in the large towns of Brazil. There was nothing which the rich fazenda refused his son. Benito was possessed of a cheerful disposition, an act of mind, a lively intelligence, and qualities of heart equal to those of his head. At the age of twelve he was sent into Para, to Belém, and there, under the direction of excellent professors, he acquired the elements of an education which could not but eventually make him a distinguished man. Nothing in literature, in the sciences, in the arts was a stranger to him. He studied as if the fortune of his father would not allow him to remain idle. He was not among such as imagine that riches exempt men from work. He was one of those noble characters, resolute and just, who believed that nothing should diminish our natural obligation in this respect if we wished to be worthy of the name of men. During the first years of his residence at Belém, Benito had made the acquaintance of Manuel Valdez. This young man, the son of a merchant in Para, was pursuing his studies in the same institution as Benito. The conformity of their characters and their tastes proved no barrier to their uniting in the closest of friendships, and they became inseparable companions. Manuel, born in 1832, was one year older than Benito. He had only a mother, and she lived on the modest fortune which her husband had left her. When Manuel's preliminary studies were finished, he had taken up the subject of medicine. He had a passionate taste for that noble profession, and his intention was to enter the army toward which he felt himself attracted. At the time that we saw him with his friend Benito, Manuel Valdez had already obtained his first step, and he had come away on leave for some months to the fazenda where he was accustomed to pass his holidays. Well built and of distinguished bearing with a certain native pride which became him well, the young man was treated by Joao and Yaquites another son. But if this quality of son made him the brother of Benito, the title was scarcely appreciated by him when Mignon was concerned, for he soon became attached to the young girl by a bond more intimate than could exist between brother and sister. In the year of 1852, of which four months had already passed before the commencement of this history, Joao attained the age of forty-eight years. In that sultry climate which wears men away so quickly, he had known how, by sobriety, self-denial, suitable living and constant work, to remain untouched where others had prematurely succumbed. His hair which he wore short and his beard which was full, had already grown gray and gave him the look of a puritan. The proverbial honesty of the Brazilian merchants and fazenders showed itself in his features, of which straightforwardness was the leading characteristic. His calm temperament seemed to indicate an interior fire kept well under control. The fearlessness of his look denoted a deep-rooted strength, to which, when danger threatened, he could never appeal in vain. But notwithstanding one could not help remarking about this quiet man of vigorous health, with whom all things had succeeded in life, a depth of sadness which even the tenderness of Yakita had not been able to subdue. Respected by all, placed in all the conditions that would seem necessary to happiness, why was not this just man more cheerful and less reserved? Why did he seem to be happy for others and not for himself? Was this disposition attributable to some secret grief? Herein was a constant source of anxiety to his wife. Yakita was now forty-four. In that tropical country where women are already old at thirty, she had learned the secret of resisting the climate's destructive influences, and her features, a little sharpened but still beautiful, retained the haughty outline of the Portuguese type, in which nobility of face unites so naturally with dignity of mind. Benito and Mia responded with an affection unbounded and unceasing for the love which their parents bore them. Benito is now age twenty-one, and quick, brave, and sympathetic, contrasted outwardly with his friend Manuel, who was more serious and reflective. It was a great treat for Benito, after quite a year past at Belém, so far from the Fazenda, to return with his young friend to his home to see once more his father, his mother, his sister, and to find himself enthusiastic hunter as he was in the midst of the superb forests of the upper Amazon, some of whose secrets remained after so many centuries still unsolved by man. Mia was twenty years old, a lovely girl, brunette and with large blue eyes, eyes which seemed to open into her very soul of middle height, good figure and winning grace, in every way the very image of Yakita. A little more serious than her brother, affable, good-natured and charitable, she was beloved by all. On this subject you could fearlessly interrogate the humblest servants of the Fazenda. It was unnecessary to ask her brother's friend Manuel Valdez what he thought of her. He was too much interested in the question to have replied without a certain amount of partiality. This sketch of the Garau family would not be complete and would lack some of its features, were we not to mention the numerous staff of the Fazenda. In the first place, then, it behooves us to name an old negrus of some sixty years, called Cybel, free through the will of her master, a slave through her affection for him and his, and who had been the nurse of Yakita. She was one of the family. She deed and thou'd both mother and daughter. The whole of this good creature's life was passed in these fields, in the middle of these forests, on that bank of the river which bounded the horizon of the farm. Coming as a child to Yakitos in the slave-trading times, she had never quitted the village. She was married there, an earlier widow, had lost her only son and remained in the service of Magaliais. Of the Amazon she knew no more than what flow'd before her eyes. With her, and more specially attached to the service of Miña, was a pretty laughing mulatto, of the same age as her mistress, to whom she was completely devoted. She was called Lina, one of those gentle creatures, a little spoiled perhaps, to whom a good deal of familiarity is allowed, but who, in return, adore their mistresses. Quick, restless, coaxing, and lazy, she could do what she pleased in the house. As for servants, they were of two kinds, Indians, of whom there were about a hundred, employed always for the works of the Fazenda, and blacks to about double the number who were not yet free, but whose children were not born slaves. João Garau had hereun preceded the Brazilian government. In this country, moreover the negroes coming from Banguela, the Congo, or the Gold Coast were always treated with kindness, and it was not at the Fazenda of Iquitos that one would look for those sad examples of cruelty which were so frequent on foreign plantations. Manuel was in love with the sister of his friend Minito, and she was in love with him. Each was sensible of the other's worth, and each was worthy of the other. When he was no longer able to mistake the state of his feelings toward Minya, Manuel had opened his heart to Benito. Manuel, my friend, he had immediately answered the enthusiastic young fellow, you could not do better than wish to marry my sister, leave it to me. I will commence by speaking to the mother, and I think I can promise that you will not have long to wait for her consent. Half an hour afterward he had done so. Benito had nothing to tell his mother which she did not know, Yaquita had already divined the young people's secret. Before ten minutes had elapsed Benito was in the presence of Minya. They had but to agree. There was no need for much eloquence. At the first words the head of the gentle girl was laid on her brother's shoulder and the confession, I am so happy, was whispered from her heart. The answer almost came before the question. That was obvious, Benito did not ask for more. There could be little doubt as to Zhuangarao's consent, but if Yaquita and her children did not at once speak to him about the marriage, it was because they wished at the same time to touch on a question which might be more difficult to solve. That question was, where should the wedding take place? Where should it be celebrated? In the humble cottage which served for the village church? Why not? Zhuangyaquita had there received the nuptial benediction of the Padre Passagna, who was then the curate of Iquitos Parish. At that time, as now, there was no distinction in Brazil between the civil and religious acts, and the registers of the mission were sufficient testimony to a ceremony which no officer of the civil power was entrusted to attend to. Zhuangarao would probably wish the marriage to take place at Iquitos, with grand ceremonies in the attendance of the whole staff of the fazenda, but if such was to be his idea he would have to withstand a vigorous attack concerning it. Manuel, Minas had to her betrothed. If I was consulted in the matter, we should not be married here, but at Pará, Madame Valdez is an invalid, she cannot visit Iquitos, and I should not like to become her daughter without knowing and being known by her. My mother agrees with me in thinking so. We should like to persuade my father to take us to Belém. Do you not think so? To this proposition, Manuel had replied by pressing me his hand. He had also had a great wish for his mother to be present at his marriage. Benito had approved the scheme without hesitation, and it was only necessary to persuade Zhuangarao. And hence on this day the young men had gone out hunting in the woods, so as to leave Iquita alone with her husband. In the afternoon these two were in the large room of the house. Zhuangarao, who had just come in, was half-reclining on a couch of plated bamboos when Iquita, a little anxious, came and seated herself beside him. To tell Zhuang of the feelings which Manuel entertained toward his daughter was not what troubled her. The happiness of Mia could not but be assured by the marriage, and Zhuang would be glad to welcome to his arms the new son whose sterling qualities he recognized and appreciated. But to persuade her husband to leave the Fasenda Iquita felt to be a very serious matter. In fact, since Zhuangarao, then a young man, had arrived in the country he had never left it for a day. Though the sight of the Amazon, with its waters gently flowing to the east, invited him to follow its course. Though Zhuang every year sent rafts of wood to Manaus, to Belain, and the sea coast of Parao, though he had seen each year beneath to leave after his holidays to return to his studies, yet the thought seemed never to have occurred to him to go with him. The products of the farm, of the forest and of the fields, the Fasenda sold on the spot. He had no wish, either with thought or look, to go beyond the horizon which bounded his Eden. From this it followed that for twenty-five years Zhuangarao had never crossed the Brazilian frontier. His wife and daughter had never set foot on Brazilian soil. The longing to see something of that beautiful country of which Benito was often talking was not wanting nevertheless. Two or three times Yakita had sounded her husband in the matter. But she had noticed that the thought of leaving the Fasenda, if only for a few weeks, brought an increase of sadness to his face. His eyes would close, and in a tone of mild reproach he would answer, Why, leave our home. Are we not comfortable here? And Yakita, in the presence of the man whose active kindness and unchangeable tenderness rendered her so happy, had not the courage to persist. This time, however, there was a serious reason to make it worthwhile. The marriage of Mia afforded an excellent opportunity, it being so natural for them to accompany her to Belang, where she was going to live with her husband. She would there see and learn to love the mother of Manuel Valdez. How could Zhuangarao hesitate in the face of so praiseworthy a desire? Why, on the other hand, did he not participate in this desire to become acquainted with her, who was to be the second mother of his child? Yakita took her husband's hand, and with that gentle voice which had been to him all the music of his life. Zhuangarao said, I am going to talk to you about something which we ardently wish, and which will make you as happy as we are. What is it about Yakita? asked Zhuangarao. Now loves your daughter, he is loved by her, and in this union they will find the happiness. At the first words of Yakita, Zhuangarao had risen without being able to control a sudden start. His eyes were immediately cast down, and he seemed to designedly avoid the look of his wife. What is the matter with you? asked she. Mia, to get married, murmured Zhuang. My dear, said Yakita, feeling somewhat hurt, have you any objection to make to the marriage? Have you not for some time noticed the feelings which Manuel has entertained toward our daughter? Yes, and a year since, Zhuang sat down without finishing his thoughts. By an effort of his will he had again become master of himself. The unaccountable impression which had been made upon him disappeared. Gradually his eyes returned to meet those of Yakita, and he remained thoughtfully looking at her. Yakita took his hand. Zhuang, she said, have I been deceived? Had you no idea that this marriage would one day take place, and that it would give her every chance of happiness? Yes, answered Zhuang. Oh, certainly! But Yakita, this wedding, this wedding that we are both thinking of, when is it coming off? Shortly? It will come off when you choose, Zhuang. And it will take place here at the Gythos? This question obliged Yakita to enter on the other matter which she had at heart. She did not do so, however, without some hesitation, which was quite intelligible. Zhuang, she said after a moment's silence, listen to me. Regarding this wedding, I have got a proposal which I hope you will approve of. Two or three times during the last twenty years I have asked you to take me and my daughter to the provinces of the lower Amazon, and to Pará, where we have never been. The cares of the Fizenda, the works which have required your presence, have not allowed you to grant our request. To absent yourself even for a few days would then have injured your business. But now everything has been successful beyond your dreams, and if the hour of repose has not yet come for you, you can at least for a few weeks get away from your work. Zhuang Aral did not answer, but Yakita felt his hand tremble in hers as though under the shock of some sorrowful recollection. At the same time a half-smile came to her husband's lips, a mute invitation for her to finish what she had begun. Zhuang, she continued, Here is an occasion which we shall never see again in this life. Minya is going to be married away from us, and is going to leave us. It is the first sorrow which our daughter has caused us, and my heart quails when I think of the separation which is so near. But I should be content if I could accompany her to Belém. Does it not seem right to you, even in other respects, that we should know her husband's mother, who is to replace me, and to whom we are about to entrust her? According to this, Minya does not wish to grieve Madame Valdez by getting married at a distance from her. When we were married, Zhuang, if your mother had been alive, would you not have liked her to be present at your wedding? At these words of Yakita Zhuang made a movement which he could not repress. My dear, continued Yakita, with Minya, with our two sons Benito and Manuel, with you, how I should like to see Brazil and to journey down the splendid river, even to the provinces on the seacoast through which it runs. It seems to me that the separation would be so much less cruel. As we came back we should revisit our daughter in her house, with her second mother. I would not think of her as gone, I knew not where. I would fancy myself much less a stranger to the doings of her life. This time Zhuang had fixed his eyes on his wife, and looked at her for some time without saying anything. What ailed him? Why this hesitation to grant her a quest, which was so just in itself, to say yes, when it would give such pleasure to all who belong to him? His business affairs could not afford a sufficient reason. A few weeks of absence would not compromise matters to such a degree. His manager would be able to take his place without any hitch in the fazenda. And yet, all this time, he hesitated. Yakita had taken both her husband's hands in hers, and pressed them tenderly. Zhuang, she said, it is not a mere whim that I am asking you to grant. No. For a long time I have thought over the proposition I have just made to you, and if you consent it will be the realization of my most cherished desire. Our children know why I am now talking to you. Minya, Benito, Manuel, all ask this favor, that we should accompany them. We would all rather have the wedding at Belém, that Ariguitos. It will be better for your daughter, for her establishment, for the position which she will take at Belém, and that she should arrive with her people, and appear less of a stranger in the town in which she will spend most of her life. Zhuangarao leaned on his elbows. For a moment he hid his face in his hands, like a man who had to collect his thoughts before he made answer. There was evidently some hesitation which he was anxious to overcome. Even some trouble which his wife felt, but could not explain. A secret battle was being fought under that thoughtful brow. Yakita got anxious, and almost reproached herself for raising the question. Anyhow, she was resigned to what Zhuang should decide. If the expedition would cost too much, she would silence her wishes. She would never more speak of leaving the Fazenda, and never ask the reason for the inexplicable refusal. Some minutes passed. Zhuangarao rose. He went to the door and did not return. Then he seemed to give a last look on that glorious nature, on that corner of the world where for twenty years of his life he had met with all his happiness. Then with slow steps he returned to his wife. His face bore a new expression, that of a man who had taken a last decision, and with whom a resolution had ceased. You are right, he said in a firm voice. The journey is necessary. When shall we start? Ah, Zhuang, my Zhuang, cried Yakita in her joy. Thank you for me, thank you for them. When tears of affection came to her eyes as her husband clasped her to his heart. At this moment happy voices were heard outside at the door of the house. Manuel and Benito appeared an instant after her at the threshold, almost at the same moment as Minya entered the room. Children, your father consents, cried Yakita. We are going to ballet. With a grave face and without speaking a word, Zhuangarao received the congratulations of his son and the kisses of his daughter. And what date, father? Asked Benito. Have you fixed for the wedding? Date? Asked Zhuangarao. Date? We shall see. We will fix it at ballet. I am so happy! I am so happy! Repeated Minya, as she had done on the day when she had first known of Manuel's request. We shall now see the Amazon in all its glory throughout its course through the provinces of Brazil. Thanks, father! And the young enthusiast, whose imagination was already stirred, continued to her brother and to Manuel. Let us be off to the library. Let us get hold of every book and every map that we can find, which will tell us anything about this magnificent river system. Don't let us travel like blind folks. I want to see everything and know everything about this king of the rivers of the earth. Part 1, Chapter 5 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 5, The Amazon. The largest river in the whole world, said Benito, to Manuel Valdés on the morrow. They were seated on the bank which formed the southern boundary of the Fizenda, and looking at the liquid molecules passing slowly by, which, coming from the enormous range of the Andes, were on their road to lose themselves in the Atlantic Ocean, 800 Leagues away. From the river which carries to the sea the largest volume of water, replied Manuel. A volume so considerable, added Benito, that it freshens the sea water for an immense distance from its mouth, and the force of whose current is felt by ships at eight leagues from the coast. A river whose course is developed over more than thirty degrees of latitude, and in a basin from which south to north does not comprise less than twenty-five degrees. A basin, exclaimed Benito, can you call it a basin? The vast plain through which it runs, the savanna which on all size stretches out of sight, without a hill to give a gradient, without a mountain to bound the horizon? And along its whole extent, continued Manuel, like the thousand tentacles of some giant polyp, two hundred tributaries flowing from north or south, themselves fed by smaller affluence without number, by the side of which the large rivers of Europe are but petty streamlets. And in its course, five hundred and sixty islands without counting islets, drifting or stationary, forming a kind of archipelago, and yielding of themselves the wealth of a kingdom, and along its flanks, canals, lagoons, and lakes, such as cannot be met with even in Switzerland, Lombardi, Scotland, or Canada. A river which, fed by its myriad tributaries, discharges into the Atlantic over two hundred and fifty millions of cubic meters of water every hour. A river whose course serves as the boundary of two republics, and sweeps majestically across the largest empire of South America, as if it were, in very truth, the Pacific Ocean itself, flowing along its own canal into the Atlantic. And what a mouth, an arm of the sea in which one island, Maroseau, has a circumference of more than five hundred leagues, and whose waters the ocean does not pond back without rising in a strife which is phenomenal, a tide-race, or pororoca, to which the ebbs, the boars, and the eddies of other rivers are but tiny ripples fanned up by the breeze, a river which three names are scarcely enough to distinguish, and which ships of heavy tonnage without any change in their cargos can ascend for more than three thousand miles from its mouth. A river which by itself its affluence and subsidiary streams opens a navigable commercial route across the whole of the south of the continent, passing from the Magdalena to the Ortoquaza, from the Ortoquaza to the Carqueta, from the Carqueta to the Puttameo, from the Puttameo to the Amazon, four thousand miles of waterway, which only require a few canals to make the network of navigation complete. In short, the biggest and most admirable river system which we have in the world. The two young men were speaking in a kind of frenzy of their incomparable river. They were themselves children of this great Amazon, whose affluence well worthy of itself from the highways which penetrate Bolivia, Peru, Ecuador, Nugrenada, Venezuela, and the Forguyanas, English, French, Dutch, and Brazilian. What nations, what races, has it seen whose origin is lost in the far distant past? It is one of the largest rivers of the globe. Its true source still baffles our explorers. Numbers of states still claim the honor of giving it birth. The Amazon was not likely to escape the inevitable fate, and Peru, Ecuador, and Colombia have for years disputed as to the honor of its glorious paternity. Today, however, there seems to be little doubt but that the Amazon rises in Peru, in the district of Paracro, in the department of Tarma, and that it starts from the lake of Loracoca, which is situated between the eleventh and twelfth degree of south latitude. Those who make the river rise in Bolivia and descend from the mountains of Titicaca have to prove that the true Amazon is the Yucayali which is formed by the junction of the Paro and the Apuramac, an assertion which is now generally rejected. At its departure from Lake Loracoca, the youthful river starts toward the northeast for a distance of five hundred and sixty miles, and does not strike to the west until it has received an important tributary, the Ponta. It is called the Maranhão in its journey through Colombia and Peru up to the Brazilian frontier, or rather the Maranhão is only the French rendering of the Portuguese name. From the frontier of Brazil to Manaus, where the superb Rio Negro joins it, it takes the name of Solameis, or Solamões, from the name of the Indian tribe Solameo, of which survivors are still found in the neighboring provinces. And finally, from Manaus to the sea it is the Amacinas, or River of the Amazons, a name given it by the old Spaniards, the descendants of the adventurous Arilana, whose vague but enthusiastic stories went to show that there existed a tribe of female warriors on the Rio Namunda, one of the middle-sized affluence of the Great River. From its commencement, the Amazon is recognizable as destined to become a magnificent stream. There are neither rapids nor obstacles of any sort until it reaches a defile where its course is slightly narrowed between two picturesque and unequal precipices. No falls are met with until this point is reached, where it curves to the eastward and passes through the intermediary chain of the Andes. River bouts are a few waterfalls, or it not for which the river would be navigable from its mouth to its source. As it is, however, according to Humboldt, the Amazon is free for five-sixths of its length. And from its first starting there is no lack of tributaries, which are themselves fed by subsidiary streams. There is the Chinchipa coming from the northeast on its left. On its right it is joined by the Chacapoyas coming from the northeast. On the left we have the Marana and the Pestuca. And the Gualaga comes in from the right near the mission station of Laguna. On the left there comes the Sembraya and the Tigray flowing from the northeast. And on the right the Hualaga, which joins the mainstream twenty-eight hundred miles from the Atlantic, and can be ascended by steamboats for over two hundred miles into the very heart of Peru. To the right again near the mission of San Joaquim Tomaguas, just where the upper basin terminates and after flowing majestically across the Pampas of Sacramento, it receives the magnificent Yucayali, the great artery which, fed by numerous affluence, descends from Lake Chacuito in the northeast of Areca. Such are the principal branches above the village of Yucatos. Down the stream the tributaries become so considerable that the beds of most European rivers would fail to contain them. By the mouths of these auxiliary waters, Joam Garral and his people will pass as they journey down the Amazon. To the beauties of this unrivaled river, which waters the finest country in the world, and keeps along its whole course at a few degrees to the south of the equator, there is to be added another quality, possessed by neither the Nile, the Mississippi, nor the Livingstone, or, in other words, the old Congo Zaire Lualaba, and that is, although some ill-informed travelers have stated to the contrary, that the Amazon crosses a most healthy part of South America. Its basin is constantly swept by westerly winds. It is not a narrow valley surrounded by high mountains which border its banks, but a huge plain measuring 350 leagues from north to south, scarcely varied with a few nulls, whose whole extent the atmospheric currents can traverse unchecked. Professor Agassi very properly protested against the pretended unhealthiness of the climate of a country which is destined to become one of the most active of the world's producers. According to him, a soft and gentle breeze is constantly observable, and produces an evaporation thanks to which the temperature is kept down, and the sun does not give out heat unchecked. The constancy of this refreshing breeze renders the climate of the river Amazon agreeable and even delightful. The Abbe Durand has likewise testified that if the temperature does not drop below 25 degrees centigrade, it never rises above 33 degrees, and this gives for the year a mean temperature of from 28 degrees to 29 degrees with a range of only 8 degrees. After such statements we are safe in affirming that the basin of the Amazon has none of the burning heats of countries like Asia and Africa which are crossed by the same parallels. The vast plain which serves for its valley is accessible over its whole length to the generous breezes which come from off the Atlantic, and the provinces to which the river has given its name have acknowledged right to call themselves the healthiest of a country which is one of the finest on the earth. And how can we say that the hydrographical system of the Amazon is not known? In the sixteenth century, Oralana, the lieutenant of one of the brothers Pizarro, descended the Rio Negro, arrived on the main river in 1540, ventured without a guide across the unknown district, and after eighteen months of a navigation of which record is most marvelous reached the mouth. In 1636 and 1637, the Portuguese Pedro Teixeira ascended the Amazon to Naipo with a fleet of forty-seven Perugas. In 1743, Lacan Damin, after having measured an arc of the meridian at the equator, left his companions Bougère and Godin de Odenay, embarked on the Chinchipe, descended to its junction with the Marignon, reached the mouth at Naipo on the thirty-first of July, just in time to observe an immersion of the first satellite of Jupiter, which allowed this, Humboldt of the eighteenth century, to accurately determine the latitude and longitude of the spot. Visited the villages on both banks, and on the sixth of September, arrived in front of the fort of Parra. This immense journey had important results. Not only was the course of the Amazon made out in scientific fashion, but it seemed almost certain that it communicated with the Orinoco. Fifty-five years later, Humboldt and Bonpland completed the valuable work of Lacan Damin, and drew up the map of the Marignon as far as Naipo. Since this period, the Amazon itself and all its principal tributaries have been frequently visited. In 1827, Lister Maud, in 1834 and 1835, Smythe, in 1844, the French Lieutenant-in-Command of the Boulinese, the Brazilian Valdez, in 1840, the French Paul Marcois from 1848 to 1860, the Whimsical Painter Beard in 1859, Professor Agassiz in 1865 and 1866, in 1867 the Brazilian engineer Franz Keller Linsinger, and lastly, in 1879, Dr. Cravo, have explored the course of the river, ascended many of its tributaries, and ascertained the navigability of its principal affluence. But what has won the greatest honor for the Brazilian government is that on the 31st of July, 1857, after numerous frontier disputes between France and Brazil about the Guiana boundary, the course of the Amazon was declared to be free and open to oil flags, and to make practice harmonized with theory, Brazil entered into negotiations with the neighboring powers for the exploration of every river road in the basin of the Amazon. Today, lines of well-found steamboats which correspond direct with Liverpool are plying on the river from its mouth up to Manaos, others ascend to Equitos, others by way of the Tapaneus, the Madeira, the Rio Negro, or the Puris, make their way into the center of Peru and Bolivia. One can easily imagine the progress which commerce will one day make in this immense and wealthy area, which is without a rival in the world. But to this metal of the future there is a reverse. No progress can be accomplished without detriment to the indigenous races. In face on the upper Amazon many Indian tribes have already disappeared, among others the Cura Securas and the Sorameos. On the Putomeo, if a few Uries are still met with, the Yajas have abandoned the district to take refuge among some of the distant tributaries, and the Mayous have quitted its banks to wander in their diminished numbers among the forests of Yapura. The Tunatans is almost depopulated and there are only a few families of wandering Indians at the mouth of the Yurura. The Tefei is almost deserted, and near the sources of the Yapur there remained but the fragments of the Great Nation of the Yumala. The Kauri is forsaken. There are but few Murus Indians on the banks of the Puris. Of the ancient Mineos one can count but a wandering party or two. On the banks of the Rio Negro there are only a few half-breeds, Portuguese and Natives, where a few years ago twenty-four different nations had their homes. Such is the law of progress. The Indians will disappear. Before the Anglo-Saxon race, Australians and Tasmanians have vanished. Before the conquerors of the far west, the North American Indians have been wiped out. One day perhaps the Arabs will be annihilated by the colonization of the French. But we must return to 1852. The means of communication, so numerous now, did not then exist, and the journey of Yoham Garral would require not less than four months owing to the conditions under which it was made. Hence this observation of Benito, while the two friends were watching the river as it gently flowed at their feet, Manoel, my friend, if there is very little interval between our arrival at Belém and the moment of our separation, the time will appear to you to be very short. Yes, Benito, said Manoel, and very long as well, for Minha cannot be my wife until the end of the voyage. CHAPTER 6 A FOREST ON THE GROUND The Garral family were in high glee. The magnificent journey on the Amazon was to be undertaken under conditions as agreeable as possible, not only with a fazenda and his family to start on a voyage for several months, but as we shall see, he was to be accompanied by a part of the staff of the farm. In beholding everyone happy around him, Joan forgot the anxieties which appeared to trouble his life. From the day his decision was taken he had been another man, and when he busied himself about the preparations for the expedition he regained his former activity. His people rejoiced exceedingly at seeing him again at work. His moral self reacted against his physical self, and Joan again became the active energetic man of his earlier years, and moved about once more as though he had spent his life in the open air, under the invigorating influences of forests, fields, and running waters. Moreover, the few weeks that were to proceed his departure had been well employed. At this period, as we have just remarked, the course of the Amazon was not yet furrowed by the numberless steam vessels which companies were only then thinking of putting into the river. The service was worked by individuals on their own account alone, and often the boats were only employed in the business of the riverside establishments. These boats were either ubers, canoes made from the trunk of a tree, hollowed out by fire and finished with the axe, pointed and light in front and heavy and broad in the stern, able to carry from one to a dozen paddlers, and three or four tons burned. A galley-tears constructed on a larger scale of broader design and leaving on each side a gangway for the rowers, or jangada, rafts of no particular shape propelled by a triangular sail, and surmounted by a cabin of mud and straw which served the Indian and his family for a floating home. These three kinds of craft formed the lesser flotilla of the Amazon, and were only suited for a moderate traffic of passengers or merchandise. Larger vessels however existed, either vigilingas ranging from eight up to ten tons with three masts rigged for red sails, and which in calm weather were rowed by four long panels, not at all easy to work against the stream, or cobertas of twenty tons burden, a kind of junk with a poop behind and a cabin down below with two masts and square sails of an equal size, and propelled when the wind fell by six long sweeps which Indians work from a forecastle. But neither of these vessels satisfied Jom Garal. From the moment that he had resolved to descend the Amazon, he had thought of making the most of the voyage by carrying a huge convoy of goods into Pará. From this point of view there was no necessity to descend the river in a hurry, and the determination to which he had come pleased everyone, accepting perhaps Manuel, who would for very good reasons have preferred some rapid steamboat. But though the means of transport devised by Jom were primitive in the extreme, he was going to take with him a numerous following and abandon himself to the stream under exceptional conditions of comfort and security. It would be in truth as if part of the fazenda of Aquitos had been cut away from the bank and carried down the Amazon with all that composed the family of the fazenda, masters and servants in their dwellings, their cottages, and their huts. The settlement of Aquitos included a part of those magnificent forests which in the central districts of South America are practically inexhaustible. Jom Garal thoroughly understood the management of these woods, which were rich in the most precious and diverse species, adapted for joinery, cabinet work, ship building, and carpentry, and from them he annually drew considerable profits. The river was there in front of him and could it not be as safely and economically used as a railway if one existed? So every year Jom Garal felled some hundreds of trees from his stock and formed immense rafts of floating wood of joists, beams, and slightly squared trunks which were taken to Parra in charge of capable pilots who were thoroughly acquainted with the depths of the river and the direction of its currents. This year Jom Garal decided to do as he had done in preceding years, only when the raft was made up he was going to leave to Benito all the detail of the trading part of the business. But there was no time to lose, the beginning of June was the best season to start, for the waters increased by the floods of the upper basin would gradually and gradually subside until the month of October. The first steps had thus to be taken without delay, for the raft was to be of unusual proportions. It would be necessary to fell a half square mile of the forest which was situated at the junction of the nanae and the amazon, that is to say the whole riverside of the Fizenda, to form the enormous mass for such withered jangadas or river rafts which attain the dimensions of a small island. It was in this jangada safer than any other vessel of the country, larger than a hundred Egariteers or Vigilingas, coupled together that Jom Garal proposed to embark with his family, his servants and his merchandise. Excellent idea, had cried Mina, clapping her hands when she learned her father's scheme. Yes, said Jaquita, and in that way we shall reach Bellum without danger or fatigue. And during the stoppages we can have some hunting in the forest which land the banks, added Benito. Want to take rather long, observed Manuel, could we not hit upon some quick way of descending the Amazon? It would take some time obviously, but the interested observation of the young doctor received no attention from anyone. Jom Garal then called in an Indian, who was the principal manager of the Fizenda. In a month he said to him, the jangada must be built and ready to launch. We'll set to work this very day, sir. It was a heavy task. There were about a hundred Indians and blacks, and during the first fortnight in May they did wonders. Some people, unaccustomed to these great tree massacres, would perhaps have grown to see giants many hundred years old fall in a few hours beneath the axes of the woodmen. But there was such a quantity on the banks of the river, upstream and downstream, even to the most distant points of the horizon, that the felling of this half mile of forest would scarcely leave an appreciable void. The superintendent of the men, after receiving the instructions of Jom Garal, had first cleared the ground of the creepers, brushwood, weeds, and abhorrescent plants, which obstructed it. Before taking to the saw and the axe they had armed themselves with a felling sword, that indispensable tool of everyone who desires to penetrate the Amazonian forests, a large blade slightly curved wide and flat, and two or three feet long and strongly handled, which the natives wield with consummate address. In a few hours with the help of the felling sword they had cleared the ground, cut down the underwood, and opened large gaps into the densest portions of the wood. In this way the work progressed, the ground was cleared in front of the woodmen. The old trunks were divested of their clothing of creepers, cacti, ferns, mosses, and bromelias. They were stripped naked to the bark, until such time as the bark itself was stripped from off them. Then the whole of the workers, before whom fled an innumerable crowd of monkeys who were hardly their superiors in agility, slung themselves into the upper branches, soaring off the heavier boughs and cutting down the topmost limbs, which had to be cleared away on the spot. Very soon they remained only a doomed forest with long bare stems bereft of their crowns, through which the sun luxuriously raided onto the humid soil, which perhaps its shots had never before caressed. There was not a single tree which could not be used for some work of skill, either in carpentry or cabinet work. They're shooting up like columns of ivory ringed with brown or waxed palms one hundred and twenty feet high and four feet thick at their base, white chestnuts which yield the three cornered nuts, muriches unexcelled for building purposes, baragudos measuring a couple of yards at the swelling, which is found at a few feet above the earth, trees with shining russet bark dotted with gray tubercles, each pointed stem of which supports a horizontal parasol, and bomb-backs of superb stature with its straight and smooth white stem. Among these magnificent specimens of the Amazonian flora there fell many quatibus, whose rosy canopies towered above the neighbouring trees, whose fruits are like little cups with rows of chestnuts range within, and whose wood of clear violets is specially in demand for shipbuilding. And besides there was the ironwood, and more particularly the iberatia, nearly black in its skin, and so close grained, that of it the Indians make their battle axes. Jacarandas, more precious than mahogany, sysalpinas, only now found in the depths of the old forests, which have escaped the woodsman's axe. Sapulcares, 150 feet high, buttressed by natural arches, which starting from three yards from their base rejoined the trees some 30 feet up the stem, twining themselves around the trunk, like the filiatures of a twisted column, whose head expands in a bouquet of vegetable fireworks made up of the yellow, purple, and snowy white of the parasitic plants. Three weeks after the work was begun, not one was standing of all the trees which had covered the angle of the Amazon and the Nane. The clearance was complete. Joam Garal had not even had to bister himself in the demolition of a forest, which would take 20 or 30 years to replace. Not a stick of young or old wood was left to mark the boundary of a future clearing, not even an angle to mark the limit of the denudation. It was indeed a clean sweep, the trees were cut to the level of the earth to wait the day when their roots would be got out, over which the coming spring would still spread its verdant cloak. This square space, washed in its side by the waters of the river and its tributary, was destined to be cleared, plowed, planted and sown, and the following year fields of manioc, coffee shrubs, sugar canes, arrowroot, maize, and peanuts would occupy the ground so recently covered by the trees. The last week of the month had not arrived when the trunks classified according to their varieties and specific gravity were symmetrically arranged on the bank of the Amazon, at the spot where the immense Jangada was to be built, which with the different habitations for the accommodation of the crew would become a veritable floating village, to wait the time when the waters of the river, swollen by the floods, would raise it and carry it for hundreds of leagues to the Atlantic coast. The whole time the work was going on, Jerome Gorell had been engaged in superintending it. From the clearing to the bank of the Fasenda, he had formed a large mound on which the portions of the raft were disposed, and to this matter he had attended entirely himself. Yakita was occupied with Ciberli, with the preparations for the departure, though the old Negrets could not be made to understand why they wanted to go, or what they hoped to see. But you will see things that you never saw before, Yakita kept saying to her. Will they be better than what I see now? Was Ciberli's invariable reply? Mina and her favorite for their part took care of what more particularly concerned them. They were not preparing for a simple voyage. For them it was a permanent departure, and there were a thousand details to look after for settling in the other country in which the young mulatto was to live with the mistress to whom she was so devotedly attached. Mina was a trifle sorrowful, but the joyous Lena was quite affected at leaving Iquitos. Mina Valdez would be the same to her as Mina Garral, and to check her spirits she would have to be separated from her mistress, and that was never thought of. Benito had actively assisted his father in the work, which was on the point of completion. He commenced his apprenticeship to the trade of Fuzende, which would probably one day become his own, as he was about to do that of a merchant on their descent of the river. As for Manuel, he divided his time between the house where Yakita and her daughter were busy as possible, and the clearing to which Benito fetched him rather often than he thought convenient, and on the whole the division was very unequal, as may well be imagined. End of chapter 6, A Forest on the Ground, read by Luke Harrison. For more from me, visit catpig.blogspot.com. That's C-A-T-P-I-G.blogspot.com.