more than twenty-five kilometers for each twenty-four hours.
In addition, the surface of the water is far from being completely
clear. Trees still green, vegetable remains, islets of plants
constantly torn from the banks, formed quite a flotilla of fragments
carried on by the currents, and were so many obstacles to speedy
navigation.
The mouth of the Nanay was soon passed, and lost to sight behind a
point on the left bank, which, with its carpet of russet grasses
tinted by the sun, formed a ruddy relief to the green forests on the
horizon.
The jangada took the center of the stream between the numerous
picturesque islands, of which there are a dozen between Iquitos and
Pucalppa.
Araujo, who did not forget to clear his vision and his memory by an
occasional application to his demijohn, maneuvered very ably when
passing through this archipelago. At his word of command fifty poles
from each side of the raft were raised in the air, and struck the
water with an automatic movement very curious to behold.
While this was going on, Yaquita, aided by Lina and Cybele, was
getting everything in order, and the Indian cooks were preparing the
breakfast.
As for the two young fellows and Minha, they were walking up and down
in company with Padre Passanha, and from time to time the lady
stopped and watered the plants which were placed about the base of
the dwelling-house.
“Well, padre,” said Benito, “do you know a more agreeable way of
traveling?”
“No, my dear boy,” replied the padre; “it is truly traveling with all
one’s belongings.”
“And without any fatigue,” added Manoel; “we might do hundreds of
thousands of miles in this way.”
“And,” said Minha, “you do not repent having taken passage with us?
Does it not seem to you as if we were afloat on an island drifted
quietly away from the bed of the river with its prairies and its
trees? Only—-”
“Only?” repeated the padre.
“Only we have made the island with our own hands; it belongs to us,
and I prefer it to all the islands of the Amazon. I have a right to
be proud of it.”
“Yes, my daughter; and I absolve you from your pride. Besides, I am
not allowed to scold you in the presence of Manoel!”
“But, on the other hand,” replied she, gayly, “you should teach
Manoel to scold me when I deserve it. He is a great deal too
indulgent to my little self.”
“Well, then, dear Minha,” said Manoel, “I shall profit by that
permission to remind you—-”
“Of what?”
“That you were very busy in the library at the fazenda, and that you
promised to make me very learned about everything connected with the
Upper Amazon. We know very little about it in Para, and here we have
been passing several islands and you have not even told me their
names!”
“What is the good of that?” said she.
“Yes; what is the good of it?” repeated Benito. “What can be the use
of remembering the hundreds of names in the ‘Tupi’ dialect with which
these islands are dressed out? It is enough to know them. The
Americans are much more practical with their Mississippi islands;
they number then—-”
“As they number the avenues and streets of their towns,” replied
Manoel. “Frankly, I don’t care much for that numerical system; it
conveys nothing to the imagination–Sixty-fourth Island or
Sixty-fifth Island, any more than Sixth Street or Third Avenue. Don’t
you agree with me, Minha?”
“Yes, Manoel; though I am of somewhat the same way of thinking as my
brother. But even if we do not know their names, the islands of our
great river are truly splendid! See how they rest under the shadows
of those gigantic palm-trees with their drooping leaves! And the
girdle of reeds which encircles them through which a pirogue can with
difficulty make its way! And the mangrove trees, whose fantastic
roots buttress them to the bank like the claws of some gigantic crab!
Yes, the islands are beautiful, but, beautiful as they are, they
cannot equal the one we have made our own!”
“My little Minha is enthusiastic to-day,” said the padre.