e sea, so as to get on board some English
ship. I do not think we shall be safe till then."

"What has your friend, then, to say to the matter?" said the sailor.

"He does not understand English, but I will ask him."

Pedro replied that he thought we should be guided by the sailor, who had
already helped us so much.

The sailor seemed pleased with the answer.

"Why, then, I'll try and do my best for you, mates," he said. "You see
we are about ten miles away from your prison, and somewhere close upon
two hundred miles from the nearest port where we are likely to fall in
with any English ship. The Spaniards don't encourage them to come
openly into their ports with the high duties they clap on, though
there's a good deal of smuggling on the coast; and more than half the
British manufactures used in the country are landed without paying a
farthing of duty. I would rather stick to the river as long as we
could; but then, you see, it's the very place the Spaniards are likely
to send to look for us. So I propose that we pull down some five or six
miles further, where there are some rapids which we cannot pass, and
then we will land on the south bank, and make our way over towards the
country they call Chili, though it's hot enough, to my mind, at times.
We might manage, to be sure, to get across the mountains, and launch a
canoe upon one of the streams which run into the river of the Amazons.
It's a long way, to be sure, but others have gone down the river; and I
don't see, if we can keep stout hearts in our bodies, why we shouldn't.
When one man has done a thing, I always think another may, if he set the
right way about it."

"A voyage down the river of the Amazons!" I exclaimed. "The very thing
I should be delighted to accomplish. I do not care for the dangers or
hardships we shall have to encounter. I say, let us try it by all
means. I am sure Pedro will agree. We must first try and find my
friend Manco, the Indian chief, if he should have escaped from his
enemies."

I then explained to the sailor who Manco was.

"That's the spirit I like to see," he answered. "We shall do, depend
upon it. I've no great fancy for being caught by the Spaniards and
clapped into prison; and they are certain to be looking for us all along
the western coast. We shall have to go rather a roundabout way, but
that can't be helped. Now, from what I hear, the Indians have pretty
well cleared the country of the white men to the