الفصل الفصل 16 · EGA

rral family had to keep indoors.

They had to occupy profitably these hours of leisure. They chatted

together, communicated their observations, and their tongues were seldom

idle.

It was under these circumstances that little by little Torres had begun

to take a more active part in the conversation. The details of his

many voyages throughout the whole north of Brazil afforded him numerous

subjects to talk about. The man had certainly seen a great deal, but

his observations were those of a skeptic, and he often shocked the

straightforward people who were listening to him. It should be said that

he showed himself much impressed toward Minha. But these attentions,

although they were displeasing to Manoel, were not sufficiently

marked for him to interfere. On the other hand, Minha felt for him an

instinctive repulsion which she was at no pains to conceal.

On the 5th of July the mouth of the Tunantins appeared on the left bank,

forming an estuary of some four hundred feet across, in which it pours

its blackish waters, coming from the west-northwest, after having

watered the territories of the Cacena Indians. At this spot the Amazon

appears under a truly grandiose aspect, but its course is more than ever

encumbered with islands and islets. It required all the address of the

pilot to steer through the archipelago, going from one bank to another,

avoiding the shallows, shirking the eddies, and maintaining the advance.

They might have taken the Ahuaty Parana, a sort of natural canal, which

goes off a little below the mouth of the Tunantins, and re-enters the

principal stream a hundred an twenty miles further on by the Rio Japura;

but if the larger portion of this measures a hundred and fifty feet

across, the narrowest is only sixty feet, and the raft would there have

met with a difficulty.

On the 13th of July, after having touched at the island of Capuro,

passed the mouth of the Jutahy, which, coming from the east-southeast,

brings in its black waters by a mouth five hundred feet wide,

and admired the legions of monkeys, sulphur-white in color, with

cinnabar-red faces, who are insatiable lovers of the nuts produced by

the palm-trees from which the river derives its name, the travelers

arrived on the 18th of July before the little village of Fonteboa.

At this place the jangada halted for twelve hours, so as to give a rest

to the crew.

Fonteboa, like most of the mission villages of the Amazon, has not

escaped the capricious fate which, during a lengthened period, moves

them about from one place to the other. Probably the hamlet has

now finished with its nomadic existence, and has definitely become

stationary. So much the better; for it is a charming place, with its

thirty houses covered with foliage, and its church dedicated to Notre

Dame de Guadaloupe, the Black Virgin of Mexico. Fonteboa has one

thousand inhabitants, drawn from the Indians on both banks, who rear

numerous cattle in the fields in the neighborhood. These occupations

do not end here, for they are intrepid hunters, or, if they prefer it,

intrepid fishers for the manatee.

On the morning of their arrival the young fellows assisted at a

very interesting expedition of this nature. Two of these herbivorous

cetaceans had just been signaled in the black waters of the Cayaratu,

which comes in at Fonteboa. Six brown points were seen moving along the

surface, and these were the two pointed snouts and four pinions of the

lamantins.

Inexperienced fishermen would at first have taken these moving points

for floating wreckage, but the natives of Fonteboa were not to be so

deceived. Besides, very soon loud blowings indicated that the spouting

animals were vigorously ejecting the air which had become useless for

their breathing purposes.

Two ubas, each carrying three fishermen, set off from the bank and

approached the manatees, who soon took flight. The black points at first

traced a long furrow on the top of the water, and then disappeared for a

time.

The fishermen continued their cautious advance. One of them, armed

with a very primitive harpoon--a long nail at the end of a stick--kept

himself in the bow of the boat, while the other two noiselessly paddled

on. They waited till the necessity of breathing would bring the manatees

up again. In ten minutes or thereabouts the animals would certainly

appear in a circle more or less confined.

In fact, this time had scarcely elapsed before the black points emerged

at a little distance, and two jets of air mingled with vapor were

noiselessly shot forth.

The ubas approached, the harpoons were thrown at the same instant; one

missed its mark, but the other struck one of the cetaceans near his

tail.

It was only necessary to stun the animal, who rarely defends himself

when touched by the iron of the harpoon. In a few pulls the cord brought

him alongside the uba, and he was towed to the beach at the foot of the

village.

It was not a manatee of any size, for it only measured about three feet

long. These poor cetaceans have been so hunted that they have become

very rare in the Amazon and its affluents, and so little time is left

them to grow that the giants of the species do not now exceed seven

feet. What are these, after manatees twelve and fifteen feet long, which

still abound in the rivers and lakes of Africa?

But it would be difficult to hinder their destruction. The flesh of

the manatee is excellent, superior even to that of pork, and the oil

furnished by its lard, which is three inches thick, is a product of

great value. When the meat is smoke-dried it keeps for a long time, and

is capital food. If to this is added that the animal is easily caught,

it is not to be wondered at that the species is on its way to complete

destruction.

On the 19th of July, at sunrise, the jangada left Fonteboa, and entered

between the two completely deserted banks of the river, and breasted

some islands shaded with the grand forests of cacao-trees. The sky was

heavily charged with electric cumuli, warning them of renewed storms.

The Rio Jurua, coming from the southwest, soon joins the river on

the left. A vessel can go up it into Peru without encountering

insurmountable obstacles among its white waters, which are fed by a

great number of petty affluents.

“It is perhaps in these parts,” said Manoel, “that we ought to look for

those female warriors who so much astonished Orellana. But we ought to

say that, like their predecessors, they do nor form separate tribes;

they are simply the wives who accompany their husbands to the fight, and

who, among the Juruas, have a great reputation for bravery.”

The jangada continued to descend; but what a labyrinth the Amazon now

appeared! The Rio Japura, whose mouth was forty-eight miles on ahead,

and which is one of its largest tributaries, runs almost parallel with

the river.

Between them were canals, iguarapes, lagoons, temporary lakes, an

inextricable network which renders the hydrography of this country so

difficult.

But if Araujo had no map to guide him, his experience served him more

surely, and it was wonderful to see him unraveling the chaos, without

ever turning aside from the main river.

In fact, he did so well that on the 25th of July, in the afternoon,

after having passed before the village of Parani-Tapera, the raft was

anchored at the entrance of the Lake of Ego, or Teffe, which it was

useless to enter, for they would not have been able to get out of it

again into the Amazon.

But the town of Ega is of some importance; it was worthy of a halt to

visit it. It was arranged, therefore, that the jangada should remain

on this spot till the 27th of July, and that on the morrow the large

pirogue should take the whole family to Ega. This would give a rest,

which was deservedly due to the hard-working crew of the raft.

The night passed at the moorings near a slightly rising shore, and

nothing disturbed the quiet. A little sheet-lightning was observable on

the horizon, but it came from a distant storm which did not reach the

entrance to the lake.

CHAPTER 16. EGA

At six o’clock in the morning of the 20th of July, Yaquita, Minha, Lina,

and the two young men prepared to leave the jangada.

Joam Garral, who had shown no intention of putting his foot on shore,

had decided this time, at the request of the ladies of his family, to

leave his absorbing daily work and accompany them on their excursion.

Torres had evinced no desire to visit Ega, to the great satisfaction of

Manoel, who had taken a great dislike to the man and only waited for an

opportunity to declare it.

As to Fragoso, he could not have the same reason for going to Ega as had

taken him to Tabatinga, which is a place of little importance compared

to this.

Ega is a chief town with fifteen hundred inhabitants, and in it reside

all those authorities which compose the administration of a considerable

city--considerable for the country; that is to say, the military

commandant, the chief of the police, the judges, the schoolmaster, and

troops under the command of officers of all ranks.

With so many functionaries living in a town, with their wives and

children, it is easy to see that hair-dressers would be in demand. Such

was the case, and Fragoso would not have paid his expenses.

Doubtless, however, the jolly fellow, who could do no business in Ega,

had thought to be of the party if Lina went with her mistress, but, just

as they were leaving the raft, he resolved to remain, at the request of

Lina herself.

“Mr. Fragoso!” she said to him, after taking him aside.

“Miss Lina?” answered Fragoso.

“I do not think that your friend Torres intends to go with us to Ega.”

“Certainly not, he is going to stay on board, Miss Lina, but you would

oblige me by not calling him my friend!”

“But you undertook to ask a passage for him before he had shown any

intention of doing so.”

“Yes, and on that occasion, if you would like to know what I think, I

made a fool of myself!”

“Quite so! and if you would like to know what I think, I do not like the

man at all, Mr. Fragoso.”

“Neither do I, Miss Lina, and I have all the time an idea that I

have seen him somewhere before. But the remembrance is too vague; the

impression, however, is far from being a pleasant one!”

“Where and when could you have met him? Cannot you call it to mind? It

might be useful to know who he is and what he has been.”

“No--I try all I can. How long was it ago? In what country? Under what

circumstances? And I cannot hit upon it.”

“Mr. Fragoso!”

“Miss Lina!”

“Stay on board and keep watch on Torres during our absence!”

“What? Not go with you to Ega, and remain a whole day without seeing

you?”

“I ask you to do so!”

“Is it an order?”

“It is an entreaty!”

“I will remain!”

“Mr. Fragoso!”

“Miss Lina!”

“I thank you!”

“Thank me, then, with a good shake of the hand,” replied Fragoso; “that

is worth something.”

Lina held out her hand, and Fragoso kept it for a few moments while he

looked into her face. And that is the reason why he did not take his

place in the pirogue, and became, without appearing to be, the guard

upon Torres.

Did the latter notice the feelings of aversion with which he was

regarded? Perhaps, but doubtless he had his reasons for taking no

account of them.

A distance of four leagues separated the mooring-place from the town of

Ega. Eight leagues, there and back, in a pirogue containing six persons,

besides two negroes as rowers, would take some hours, not to mention the

fatigue caused by the high temperature, though the sky was veiled with

clouds.

Fortunately a lovely breeze blew from the northwest, and if it held

would be favorable for crossing Lake Teffe. They could go to Ega and

return rapidly without having to tack.

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 of 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 itself many thousands of

miles from Paris.

“Just look at those fine ladies in their fine clothes!”

“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 the borders

of the lake as the setting sun gilded it with its rays; then they

rejoined their pirogue, somewhat disillusioned perhaps as to the

magnificence of a town which one hour would give time enough to visit,

and a little tired with walking about its stifling streets which were

not nearly so pleasant as the shady pathways of Iquitos. The inquisitive

Lina’s enthusiasm alone had not been damped.

They all took their places in the pirogue. The wind remained in the

northwest, and had freshened with the evening. The sail was hoisted.

They took the same course as in the morning, across the lake fed by

the black waters of the Rio Teffe, which, according to the Indians, is

navigable toward the southwest for forty days’ journey. At eight o’clock

the pirogue regained the mooring-place and hailed the jangada.

As soon as Lina could get Fragoso aside--

“Have you seen anything suspicious?” she inquired.

“Nothing, Miss Lina,” he replied; “Torres has scarcely left his cabin,

where he has been reading and writing.”

“He did not get into the house or the dining-room, as I feared?”

“No, all the time he was not in his cabin he was in the bow of the

raft.”

“And what was he doing?”

“Holding an old piece of paper in his hand, consulting it with great

attention, and muttering a lot of incomprehensible words.”

“All that is not so unimportant as you think, Mr. Fragoso. These

readings and writings and old papers have their interest! He is neither

a professor nor a lawyer, this reader and writer!”

“You are right!”

“Still watch him, Mr. Fragoso!”

“I will watch him always, Miss Lina,” replied Fragoso.

On the morrow, the 27th of July, at daybreak, Benito gave the pilot the

signal to start.

Away between the islands, in the Bay of Arenapo, the mouth of the

Japura, six thousand six hundred feet wide, was seen for an instant.

This large tributary comes into the Amazon through eight mouths, as if

it were pouring into some gulf or ocean. But its waters come from afar,

and it is the mountains of the republic of Ecuador which start them on

a course that there are no falls to break until two hundred and ten

leagues from its junction with the main stream.

All this day was spent in descending to the island of Yapura, after

which the river, less interfered with, makes navigation much easier. The

current is not so rapid and the islets are easily avoided, so that there

were no touchings or groundings.

The next day the jangada coasted along by vast beaches formed by

undulating high domes, which served as the barriers of immense pasture

grounds, in which the whole of the cattle in Europe could be raised and

fed. These sand banks are considered to be the richest turtle grounds in

the basin of the Upper Amazon.

On the evening of the 29th of July they were securely moored off the

island of Catua, so as to pass the night, which promised to be dark.

On this island, as soon as the sun rose above the horizon, there

appeared a party of Muras Indians, the remains of that ancient and

powerful tribe, which formerly occupied more than a hundred leagues of

the river bank between the Teffe and the Madeira.

These Indians went and came, watching the raft, which remained

stationary. There were about a hundred of them armed with blow-tubes

formed of a reed peculiar to these parts, and which is strengthened

outside by the stem of a dwarf palm from which the pith has been

extracted.

Joam Garral quitted for an instant the work which took up all his

time, to warn his people to keep a good guard and not to provoke these

Indians.

In truth the sides were not well matched. The Muras are remarkably

clever at sending through their blow-tubes arrows which cause incurable

wounds, even at a range of three hundred paces.

These arrows, made of the leaf of the _“coucourite”_ palm, are feathered

with cotton, and nine or ten inches long, with a point like a needle,

and poisoned with _“curare.”_

Curare, or _“wourah,”_ the liquor “which kills in a whisper,” as the

Indians say, is prepared from the sap of one of the euphorbiaceæ and the

juice of a bulbous strychnos, not to mention the paste of venomous ants

and poisonous serpent fangs which they mix with it.

“It is indeed a terrible poison,” said Manoel. “It attacks at once those

nerves by which the movements are subordinated to the will. But the

heart is not touched, and it does not cease to beat until the extinction

of the vital functions, and besides no antidote is known to the poison,

which commences by numbness of the limbs.”

Very fortunately, these Muras made no hostile demonstrations, although

they entertain a profound hatred toward the whites. They have, in truth,

no longer the courage of their ancestors.

At nightfall a five-holed flute was heard behind the trees in the

island, playing several airs in a minor key. Another flute answered.

This interchange of musical phrases lasted for two or three minutes, and

the Muras disappeared.

Fragoso, in an exuberant moment, had tried to reply by a song in his own

fashion, but Lina had clapped her hand on his mouth, and prevented his

showing off his insignificant singing talents, which he was so willingly

lavish of.

On the 2d of August, at three o’clock in the afternoon, the raft arrived

twenty leagues away from there at Lake Apoara, which is fed by the black

waters of the river of the same name, and two days afterward, about five

o’clock, it stopped at the entrance into Lake Coary.

This lake is one of the largest which communicates with the Amazon, and

it serves as a reservoir for different rivers. Five or six affluents

run into it, and there are stored and mixed up, and emerge by a narrow

channel into the main stream.

After catching a glimpse of the hamlet of Tahua-Miri, mounted on its

piles as on stilts, as a protection against inundation from the floods,

which often sweep up over these low sand banks, the raft was moored for

the night.

The stoppage was made in sight of the village of Coary, a dozen houses,

considerably dilapidated, built in the midst of a thick mass of orange

and calabash trees.

Nothing can be more changeable than the aspect of this village, for

according to the rise or fall of the water the lake stretches away on

all sides of it, or is reduced to a narrow canal, scarcely deep enough

to communicate with the Amazon.

On the following morning, that of the 5th of August, they started at

dawn, passing the canal of Yucura, belonging to the tangled system of

lakes and furos of the Rio Zapura, and on the morning of the 6th of

August they reached the entrance to Lake Miana.

No fresh incident occurred in the life on board, which proceeded with

almost methodical regularity.

Fragoso, urged on by Lina, did not cease to watch Torres.

Many times he tried to get him to talk about his past life, but

the adventurer eluded all conversation on the subject, and ended by

maintaining a strict reserve toward the barber.

After catching a glimpse of the hamlet of Tahua-Miri, mounted on its

piles as on stilts, as a protection against inundation from the floods,

which often sweep up and over these low sand banks, the raft was moored

for the night.

His intercourse with the Garral family remained the same. If he spoke

little to Joam, he addressed himself more willingly to Yaquita and her

daughter, and appeared not to notice the evident coolness with which

he was received. They all agreed that when the raft arrived at Manaos,

Torres should leave it, and that they would never speak of him again.

Yaquita followed the advice of Padre Passanha, who counseled patience,

but the good priest had not such an easy task in Manoel, who was quite

disposed to put on shore the intruder who had been so unfortunately

taken on to the raft.

The only thing that happened on this evening was the following:

A pirogue, going down the river, came alongside the jangada, after being

hailed by Joam Garral.

“Are you going to Manaos?” asked he of the Indian who commanded and was

steering her.

“Yes,” replied he.

“When will you get there?”

“In eight days.”

“Then you will arrive before we shall. Will you deliver a letter for

me?”

“With pleasure.”

“Take this letter, then, my friend, and deliver it at Manaos.”

The Indian took the letter which Joam gave him, and a handful of reis

was the price of the commission he had undertaken.

No members of the family, then gone into the house, knew anything

of this. Torres was the only witness. He heard a few words exchanged

between Joam and the Indian, and from the cloud which passed over his

face it was easy to see that the sending of this letter considerably

surprised him.