had done. She was in love with him, but though on his side Joam 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.
Magalhaës was one day superintending a clearance and was mortally
wounded by the fall of a tree. Carried home helpless to the farm, and
feeling himself lost, he raised up Yaquita, who was weeping by his
side, took her hand, and put it into that of Joam Garral, making him
swear to take her for his wife.
“You have made 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,” Joam Garral had at first replied. “I owe
you all, Magalhaës. 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.
Yaquita was then twenty-two years old, Joam was twenty-six. They
loved each other and they were married some hours before the death of
Magalhaës, who had just strength left to bless their union.
It was under these circumstances that in 1830 Joam Garral became the
new fazender of Iquitos, to the immense satisfaction of all t hose
who composed the staff of the farm.
The prosperity of the settlement could not do otherwise than grow
then these two minds were thus united.
A year after her marriage Yaquita presented her husband with a son,
and, two years after, a daughter. Benito and Minha, the grandchildren
of the old Portuguese, became worthy of their grandfather, children
worthy of Joam and Yaquita.
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
Manaos or Belem? 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 say any other position to which she might be called.
With Benito it was another thing. His father very wisely wished him
to receive as solid and complete an education as could then be
obtained in the large towns of Brazil. There was nothing which the
rich fazender refused his son. Benito was possessed of a cheerful
disposition, an active 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 Belem, 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 believe that
nothing should diminish our natural obligation in this respect if we
wish to be worthy of the name of men.
During the first years of his residence at Belem, Benito had made the
acquaintance of Manoel Valdez. This young man, the son of a merchant
in P:ara, 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.
Manoel, 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