he joists grated on all sides. A
struggle was going on in which little by little the trunks were being
dragged from their sandy bed.

Toward half-past six cries of joy arose. The jangada floated at
last, and the current took it toward the middle of the river, but, in
obedience to the cables, it quietly took up its position near the bank
at the moment that Padre Passanha gave it his blessing, as if it were
a vessel launched into the sea whose destinies are in the hands of the
Most High!

CHAPTER X. FROM IQUITOS TO PEVAS

ON THE 6th of June, the very next day, Joam Garral and his people bade
good-by to the superintendent and the Indians and negroes who were to
stay behind at the fazenda. At six o'clock in the morning the jangada
received all its passengers, or rather inhabitants, and each of them
took possession of his cabin, or perhaps we had better say his house.

The moment of departure had come. Araujo, the pilot, got into his place
at the bow, and the crew, armed with their long poles, went to their
proper quarters.

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? In Para, at Belem,
eight hundred leagues from this little Peruvian village, if nothing
happened to modify the route. How would it finish? That was the secret
of the future.

The weather was magnificent. A pleasant _"pampero"_ tempered the ardor
of the sun--one of those winds which in June or July come from off the
Cordilleras, many hundred leagues away, after having swept across the
huge plain of the Sacramento. Had the raft been provided with masts and
sails she would have felt the effects of the breeze, and her speed would
have been greater; but owing to the sinuosities of the river and
its abrupt changes, which they were bound to follow, they had had to
renounce such assistance.

In a flat district like that through which the Amazon flows, which is
almost a boundless plain, the gradient of the river bed is scarcely
perceptible. It has been calculated that between Tabatinga on the
Brazilian frontier, and the source of this huge body of water, the
difference of level does not exceed a decimeter in each league. There