spread out in umbrellas, groups of _”sandis,”_ from which is
extracted the thick and sugared milk, intoxicating as wine itself,
and _”vignaticos”_ eighty feet high, whose summits shake at the
passage of the lightest currents of air. “What a magnificent sermon
are these forests of the Amazon!” has been justly said. Yes; and we
might add, “What a magnificent hymn there is in the nights of the
tropics!”
The birds were giving forth their last evening notes–_”bentivis,”_
who hang their nests on the bank-side reeds; _”niambus,”_ a kind of
partridge, whose song is composed of four notes, in perfect accord;
_”kamichis,”_ with their plaintive melody; kingfishers, whose call
responds like a signal to the last cry of their congeners;
_”canindes,”_ with their sonorous trumpets; and red macaws, who fold
their wings in the foliage of the _”jaquetibas,”_ when night comes on
to dim their glowing colors.
On the jangada every one was at his post, in the attitude of repose.
The pilot alone, standing in the bow, showed his tall stature,
scarcely defined in the earlier shadows. The watch, with his long
pole on his shoulder, reminded one of an encampment of Tartar
horsemen. The Brazilian flag hung from the top of the staff in the
bow, and the breeze was scarcely strong enough to lift the bunting.
At eight o’clock the three first tinklings of the Angelus escaped
from the bell of the little chapel. The three tinklings of the second
and third verses sounded in their turn, and the salutation was
completed in the series of more rapid strokes of the little bell.
However, the family after this July day remained sitting under the
veranda to breathe the fresh air from the open.
It had been so each evening, and while Joam Garral, always silent,
was contented to listen, the young people gayly chatted away till
bedtime.
“Ah! our splendid river! our magnificent Amazon!” exclaimed the young
girl, whose enthusiasm for the immense stream never failed.
“Unequaled river, in very truth,” said Manoel; “and I do not
understand all its sublime beauties. We are going down it, however,
like Orellana and La Condamine did so many centuries ago, and I am
not at all surprised at their marvelous descriptions.”
“A little fabulous,” replied Benito.
“Now, brother,” said Minha seriously, “say no evil of our Amazon.”
“To remind you that it has its legends, my sister, is to say no ill
of it.”
“Yes, that is true; and it has some marvelous ones,” replied Minha.
“What legends?” asked Manoel. “I dare avow that they have not yet
found their way into Para–or rather that, for my part, I am not
acquainted with them.”
“What, then do you learn in the Belem colleges?” laughingly asked
Minha.
“I begin to perceive that they teach us nothing,” replied Manoel.
“What, sir!” replied Minha, with a pleasant seriousness, “you do not
know, among other fables, that an enormous reptile called the
_’minhocao,’_ sometimes visits the Amazon, and that the waters of the
river rise or fall according as this serpent plunges in or quites
them, so gigantic is he?”
“But have you ever seen t his phenomenal minhocao?”
“Alas, no!” replied Lina.
“What a pity!” Fragoso thought it proper to add.
“And the ‘Mae d’Aqua,'” continued the girl–“that proud and
redoubtable woman whose look fascinates and drages beneath the waters
of the river the imprudent ones who gaze a her.”
“Oh, as for the ‘Mae d’Aqua,’ she exists!” cried the naïve Lina;
“they say that she still walks on the banks, but disappears like a
water sprite as soon as you approach her.”
“Very well, Lina,” said Benito; “the first time you see her just let
me know.”
“So that she may seize you and take you to the bottom of the river?
Never, Mr. Benito!”
“She believes it!” shouted Minha.
“There are people who believe in the trunk of Manaos,” said Fragoso,
always ready to intervene on behalf of Lina.
“The ‘trunk of Manaos’?” asked Manoel. “What about the trunk of
Manaos?”
“Mr. Manoel,” answered Fragoso, with comic gravity, “it appears that
there is–or rather formerly was–a trunk of _’turuma,’_ which every
year at the same time descended the Rio Negro, stopping several days