them, educated them, and hoped to give each of them the nuptial
blessing.
The age of the padre did not allow of his exercising his important
ministry any longer. The horn of retreat for him had sounded; he was
about to be replaced at Iquitos by a younger missionary, and he was
preparing to return to Para, to end his days in one of those convents
which are reserved for the old servants of God.
What better occasion could offer than that of descending the river
with the family which was as his own? They had proposed it to him,
and he had accepted, and when arrived at Belem he was to marry the
young couple, Minha and Manoel.
But if Padre Passanha during the course of the voyage was to take his
meals with the family, Joam Garral desired to build for him a
dwelling apart, and heaven knows what care Yaquita and her daughter
took to make him comfortable! Assuredly the good old priest had never
been so lodged in his modest parsonage!
The parsonage was not enough for Padre Passanha; he ought to have a
chapel.
The chapel then was built in the center of the jangada, and a little
bell surmounted it.
It was small enough, undoubtedly, and it could not hold the whole of
the crew, but it was richly decorated, and if Joam Garral found his
own house on the raft, Padre Passanha had no cause to regret the
poverty-stricken church of Iquitos.
Such was the wonderful structure which was going down the Amazon. It
was then on the bank waiting till the flood came to carry it away.
From the observation and calculation of the rising it would seem as
though there was not much longer to wait.
All was ready to date, the 5th of June.
The pilot arrived the evening before. He was a man about fifty, well
up in his profession, but rather fond of drink. Such as he was, Joam
Garral in large matters at different times had employed him to take
his rafts to belem, and he had never had cause to repent it.
It is as well to add that Araujo–that was his name–never saw better
than when he had imbibed a few glasses of tafia; and he never did any
work at all without a certain demijohn of that liquor, to which he
paid frequent court.
The rise of the flood had clearly manifested itself for several days.
From minute to minute the level of the river rose, and during the
twenty-four hours which preceded the maximum the waters covered the
bank on which the raft rested, but did not lift the raft.
As soon as the movement was assured, and there could be no error as
to the height to which the flood would rise, all those interested in
the undertaking were seized with no little excitement. For if through
some inexplicable cause the waters of the Amazon did not rise
sufficiently to flood the jangada, it would all have to be built over
again. But as the fall of the river would be very rapid it would take
long months before similar conditions recurred.
On the 5th of June, toward the evening, the future passengers of the
jangada were collected on a plateau which was about a hundred feet
above the bank, and waited for the hour with an anxiety quite
intelligible.
There were Yaquita, her daughter, Manoel Valdez, Padre Passanha,
Benito, Lina, Fragoso, Cybele, and some of the servants, Indian or
negro, of the fazenda.
Fragoso could not keep himself still; he went and he came, he ran
down the bank and ran up the plateau, he noted the points of the
river gauge, and shouted “Hurrah!” as the water crept up.
“It will swim, it will swim!” he shouted. “the raft which is to take
us to Belem! It will float if all the cataracts of the sky have to
open to flood the Amazon!”
Joam Garral was on the raft with the pilot and some of the crew. It
was for him to take all the necessary measures at the critical
moment. The jangada was moored to the bank with solid cables, so that