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This Joam Garral knew by experience, and he intended to profit by the phenomenon to launch the jangada, after having built it in comfort on the river bank. In fact, between the mean and the higher level the height of the Amazon could vary as much as forty feet, and between the mean and the lower level as much as thirty feet. A difference of seventy feet like this gave the fazender all he required.
Joam Garral, assisted by Benito and Manoel, superintended the unmooring. At the command of the pilot the ropes were eased off, and the poles applied to the bank so as to give the jangada a start. The current was not long in seizing it, and coasting the left bank, the islands of Iquitos and Parianta were passed on the right. The voyage had commenced where would it finish?
On the bank of the Rio Negro there was a constant coming and going of the natives, evidently excited by the arrest of Joam Dacosta, and who could say to what excesses these half-barbarous men might be led? The time, however, passed without any demonstration against the jangada.
On the river, vessels of all sorts crammed with visitors gathered round the enormous mass of timber, and the waters of the Amazon literally disappeared even up to the left bank beneath the vast flotilla. When the chapel bell rang out its opening note it seemed like a signal of joy to ear and eye. In an instant the churches of Belem replied to the bell of the jangada.
Here Torres, with crossed arms, gave the whole family a look of inconceivable insolence. "So that is you last word?" said he, extending his hand toward Joam Garral. "No, that is not my last word." "What is it, then?" "This, Torres. I am master here. You will be off, if you please, and even if you do not please, and leave the jangada at this very instant!"
Throughout these districts, which are frequented by Tapuyas, the Indians of the Lower Amazon become more and more commingled with the white population, and promise to be completely absorbed by them. And still the jangada continued its journey down the river.
Manoel and Benito had gone shooting in the neighborhood, and brought back some feathered game, which was well received in the larder. At the same time they had got an animal of whom a naturalist would have made more than did the cook. It was a creature of a dark color, something like a large Newfoundland dog. "A great ant-eater!" exclaimed Benito, as he threw it on the deck of the jangada.
"And the document?" "Nothing yet!" exclaimed he. "Everything my imagination can suggest I have tried, and no result." "None?" "Nevertheless, I distinctly see one word in the document only one!" "What is that what is the word?" "'Fly'!" Manoel said nothing, but he pressed the hand which Jarriquez held out to him, and returned to the jangada to wait for the moment of action.
On the 16th of June the jangada, after fortunately clearing several shallows in approaching the banks, arrived near the large island of San Pablo, and the following evening she stopped at the village of Moromoros, which is situated on the left side of the Amazon.
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.
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