away on each side of it.

We may add that the exterior of the house was no less charming than the
interior.

In fact, on the outside the young fellows had given free scope to their
taste and imagination.

From the basement to the roof it was literally covered with foliage. A
confused mass of orchids, bromelias, and climbing plants, all in flower,
rooted in boxes of excellent soil hidden beneath masses of verdure. The
trunk of some ficus or mimosa was never covered by a more startlingly
tropical attire. What whimsical climbers--ruby red and golden yellow,
with variegated clusters and tangled twigs--turned over the brackets,
under the ridges, on the rafters of the roof, and across the lintels
of the doors! They had brought them wholesale from the woods in the
neighborhood of the fazenda. A huge liana bound all the parasites
together; several times it made the round of the house, clinging on
to every angle, encircling every projection, forking, uniting, it
everywhere threw out its irregular branchlets, and allowed not a bit of
the house to be seen beneath its enormous clusters of bloom.

As a delicate piece of attention, the author of which can be easily
recognized, the end of the cipo spread out before the very window of
the young mulatto, as though a long arm was forever holding a bouquet of
fresh flowers across the blind.

To sum up, it was as charming as could be; and as Yaquita, her daughter,
and Lina were content, we need say no more about it.

"It would not take much to make us plant trees on the jangada," said
Benito.

"Oh, trees!" ejaculated Minha.

"Why not?" replied Manoel. "Transported on to this solid platform,
with some good soil, I am sure they would do well, and we would have
no change of climate to fear for them, as the Amazon flows all the time
along the same parallel."

"Besides," said Benito, "every day islets of verdure, torn from the
banks, go drifting down the river. Do they not pass along with their
trees, bushes, thickets, rocks, and fields, to lose themselves in the
Atlantic eight hundred leagues away? Why, then, should we not transform
our raft into a floating garden?"

"Would you like a forest, miss?" said Fragoso, who stopped at nothing.

"Yes, a forest!" cried the young mulatto; "a forest with its birds and
its monkeys----"

"Its snakes, its jaguars!" continued Benito.

"Its Indians, its nomadic tribes," added Manoel, "and even its
cannibals!"

"But where are you going to, F