the river as it gently flowed at their feet:
“Manoel, my friend, if there is very little interval between our
arrival at Belem 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
by my wife until the end of the voyage.”
CHAPTER VI
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 were the fazender 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 every one happy around him, Joam 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 Joam 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 precede 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 _”ubas,”_ canoes made from the trunk of a
tree, hollowed out by fire, and finished with the ax, pointed and
light in front, and heavy and broad in the stern, able to carry from
one to a dozen paddlers, and of three or four tons burden:
_”egariteas,”_ 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 with red sails, and
which in calm weather were rowed by four long paddles 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 unequal size, and propelled, when the wind
fell, by six long sweeps which Indians worked from a forecastle.
But neither of these vessels satisfied Joam Garral. 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 Para.
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 every
one, excepting, perhaps, Manoel, who would for very good reasons have
preferred some rapid steamboat.
But though the means of transport devised by Joam 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 a part of the fazenda of Iquitos had
been cut away from the bank and carried down the Amazon with all that
composed the family of the fazender–masters and servants, in their
dwellings, their cottages, and their huts.
The settlement of Iquitos included a part of those magnificent
forests which, in the central districts of South America, are
practically inexhaustible.
Joam Garral thoroughly understood the management of these woods,
which were rich in the most precious and diverse species adapted for