“Ah, padre! I am so happy to see everybody happy around em!”
At this moment the voice of Yaquita was heard calling Minha into the
house.
The young girl smilingly ran off.
“You will have an amiable companion,” said the padre. “All the joy of
the house goes away with you, my friend.”
“Brave little sister!” said Benito, “we shall miss her greatly, and
the padre is right. However, if you do not marry her, Manoel–there
is still time–she will stay with us.”
“She will stay with you, Benito,” replied Manoel. “Believe me, I have
a presentiment that we shall all be reunited!”
The first day passed capitally; breakfast, dinner, siesta, walks, all
took place as if Joam Garral and his people were still in the
comfortable fazenda of Iquitos.
During these twenty-four hours the mouths of the rivers Bacali,
Chochio, Pucalppa, on the left of the stream, and those of the rivers
Itinicari, Maniti, Moyoc, Tucuya, and the islands of this name on the
right, were passed without accident. The night, lighted by the moon,
allowed them to save a halt, and the giant raft glided peacefully on
along the surface of the Amazon.
On the morrow, the 7th of June, the jangada breasted the banks of the
village of Pucalppa, named also New Oran. Old Oran, situated fifteen
leagues down stream on the same left bank of the river, is almost
abandoned for the new settlement, whose population consists of
Indians belonging to the Mayoruna and Orejone tribes. Nothing can be
more picturesque than this village with its ruddy-colored banks, its
unfinished church, its cottages, whose chimneys are hidden amid the
palms, and its two or three ubas half-stranded on the shore.
During the whole of the 7th of June the jangada continued to follow
the left bank of the river, passing several unknown tributaries of no
importance. For a moment there was a chance of her grounding on the
easterly shore of the island of Sinicure; but the pilot, well served
by the crew, warded off the danger and remained in the flow of the
stream.
In the evening they arrived alongside a narrow island, called Napo
Island, from the name of the river which here comes in from the
north-northwest, and mingles its waters with those of the Amazon
through a mouth about eight hundred yards across, after having
watered the territories of the Coto and Orejone Indians.
It was on the morning of the 7th of June that the jangada was abreast
the little island of Mango, which causes the Napo to split into two
streams before falling into the Amazon.
Several years later a French traveler, Paul Marcoy, went out to
examine the color of the waters of this tributary, which has been
graphically compared to the cloudy greenish opal of absinthe. At the
same time he corrected some of the measurements of La Condamine. But
then the mouth of the Napo was sensibly increased by the floods and
it was with a good deal of rapidity that its current, coming from the
eastern slopes of Cotopaxi, hurried fiercely to mingle itself with
the tawny waters of the Amazon.
A few Indians had wandered to the mouth of this river. They were
robust in build, of tall stature, with shaggy hair, and had their
noses pierced with a rod of palm, and the lobes of their ears
lengthened to their shoulders by the weight of heavy rings of
precious wood. Some women were with them. None of them showed any
intention of coming on board. It is asserted that these natives are
cannibals; but if that is true–and it is said of many of the
riverine tribes–there must have been more evidence for the
cannibalism than we get to-day.
Some hours later the village of Bella Vista, situated on a somewhat
lower bank, appeared, with its cluster of magnificent trees, towering
above a few huts roofed with straw, over which there drooped the
large leaves of some medium-sized banana-trees, like the waters
overflowing from a tazza.
Then the pilot, so as to follow a better current, which turned off
from the bank, directed the raft toward the right side of the river,
which he had not yet approached. The maneuver was not accomplished