So the lateen sail was hoisted on the mast of the pirogue. Benito
took the tiller, and off they went, after a last gesture from Lina to
Fragoso to keep his eyes open.
The southern shore of the lake had to be followed to get to Ega.
After two hours the pirogue arrived at the port of this ancient
mission founded by the Carmelites, which became a town in 1759, and
which General Gama placed forever under Brazilian rule.
The passengers landed on a flat beach, on which were to be found not
only boats from the interior, but a few of those little schooners
which are used in the coasting-trade on the Atlantic seaboard.
When the two girls entered Ega they were at first much astonished.
“What a large town!” said Minha.
“What houses! what people!” replied Lina, whose eyes seemed to have
expanded so that she might see better.
“Rather!” said Benito laughingly. “More than fifteen hundred
inhabitants! Two hundred houses at the very least! Some of them with
a first floor! And two or three streets! Genuine streets!”
“My dear Manoel!” said Minha, “do protect us against my brother! He
is making fun of us, and only because he had already been in the
finest towns in Amazones and Para!”
“Quite so, and he is also poking fun at his mother,” added Yaquita,
“for I confess I never saw anything equal to this!”
“Then, mother and sister, you must take great care that you do not
fall into a trance when you get to Manaos, and vanish altogether when
you reach Belem!”
“Never fear,” answered Manoel; “the ladies will have been gently
prepared for these grand wonders by visiting the principal cities of
the Upper Amazon!”
“Now, Manoel,” said Minha, “you are talking just like my brother! Are
you making fun of us, too?”
“No, Minha, I assure you.”
“Laugh on, gentlemen,” said Lina, “and let us look around, my dear
mistress, for it is very fine!”
Very fine! A collection of houses, built of mud, whitewashed, and
principally covered with thatch or palm-leaves; a few built of stone
or wood, with verandas, doors, and shutters painted a bright green,
standing in the middle of a small orchard of orange-trees in flower.
But there were two or three public buildings, a barrack, and a church
dedicated to St. Theresa, which was a cathedral by the side of the
modest chapel at Iquitos. On looking toward the lake a beautiful
panorama unfolded itself, bordered by a frame of cocoanut-trees and
assais, which ended at the edge of the liquid level, and showed
beyond the picturesque village of Noqueira, with its few small houses
lost in the mass of the old olive-trees on the beach.
But for the two girls there was another cause of wonderment, quite
feminine wonderment too, in the fashions of the fair Egans, not the
primitive costume of the natives, converted Omaas or Muas, but the
dress of true Brazilian ladies. The wives and daughters of the
principal functionaries and merchants o the town pretentiously showed
off their Parisian toilettes, a little out of date perhaps, for Ega
is five hundred leagues away from Para, and this is tiself many
thousands of miles from Paris.
“Just look at those fine ladies in their fine slothes!”
“Lina will go mad!” exclaimed Benito.
“If those dresses were worn properly,” said Minha, “they might not be
so ridiculous!”
“My dear Minha,” said Manoel, “with your simple gown and straw hat,
you are better dressed than any one of these Brazilians, with their
headgear and flying petticoats, which are foreign to their country
and their race.”
“If it pleases you to think so,” answered Minha, “I do not envy any
of them.”
But they had come to see. They walked through the streets, which
contained more stalls than shops; they strolled about the
market-place, the rendezvous of the fashionable, who were nearly
stifled in their European clothes; they even breakfasted at an
hotel–it was scarcely an inn–whose cookery caused them to deeply
regret the excellent service on the raft.
After dinner, at which only turtle flesh, served up in different
forms, appeared, the Garral family went for the last time to admire