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 Joam
Garral 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 Para in charge of capable pilots
who were thoroughly acquainted with the depths of the river and the
direction of its currents.
This year Joam Garral 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-mile square of the forest which was situated at the junction of
the Nanay and the Amazon–that is to say, the whole river side of the
fazenda, to form the enormous mass, for such were the _jangadas,_ or
river rafts, which attained the dimensions of a small island.
It was in this _jangada,_ safer than any other vessel of the country,
larger than a hundred _egariteas_ or _vigilingas_ coupled together,
that Joam Garral proposed to embark with his family, his servants,
and his merchandise.
“Excellent idea!” had cried Minha, clapping her hands, when she
learned her father’s scheme.
“Yes,” said Yaquita, “and in that way we shall reach Belem without
danger or fatigue.”
“And during the stoppages we can have some hunting in the forests
which line the banks,” added Benito.
“Won’t it take rather long?” observed Manoel; “could we not hit upon
some quicker way of descending the Amazon?”
It would take some time, obviously, but the interested observation of
the young doctor received no attention from any one.
Joam Garral then called in an Indian who was the principal manager of
the fazenda.
“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 groaned
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, up stream and down stream, 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
Joam Garral, had first cleared the ground of the creepers, brushwood,
weeds, and arborescent plants which obstructed it. Before taking to
the saw and the ax they had armed themselves with a felling-sword,
that indispensable tool of every one 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, sawing off the heavier boughs and
cutting down the topmost limbs, which had to be cleared away on the