oment the voice of Yaquita was heard calling Minha into the
house.

The young girl smilingly ran off.

"You will have an amiable companion," said the padre. "All the joy of
the house goes away with you, my friend."

"Brave little sister!" said Benito, "we shall miss her greatly, and the
padre is right. However, if you do not marry her, Manoel--there is still
time--she will stay with us."

"She will stay with you, Benito," replied Manoel. "Believe me, I have a
presentiment that we shall all be reunited!"

The first day passed capitally; breakfast, dinner, siesta, walks,
all took place as if Joam Garral and his people were still in the
comfortable fazenda of Iquitos.

During these twenty-four hours the mouths of the rivers Bacali, Chochio,
Pucalppa, on the left of the stream, and those of the rivers Itinicari,
Maniti, Moyoc, Tucuya, and the islands of this name on the right, were
passed without accident. The night, lighted by the moon, allowed them to
save a halt, and the giant raft glided peacefully on along the surface
of the Amazon.

On the morrow, the 7th of June, the jangada breasted the banks of the
village of Pucalppa, named also New Oran. Old Oran, situated fifteen
leagues down stream on the same left bank of the river, is almost
abandoned for the new settlement, whose population consists of Indians
belonging to the Mayoruna and Orejone tribes. Nothing can be more
picturesque than this village with its ruddy-colored banks, its
unfinished church, its cottages, whose chimneys are hidden amid the
palms, and its two or three ubas half-stranded on the shore.

During the whole of the 7th of June the jangada continued to follow
the left bank of the river, passing several unknown tributaries of no
importance. For a moment there was a chance of her grounding on the
easterly shore of the island of Sinicure; but the pilot, well served by
the crew, warded off the danger and remained in the flow of the stream.

In the evening they arrived alongside a narrow island, called Napo
Island, from the name of the river which here comes in from the
north-northwest, and mingles its waters with those of the Amazon through
a mouth about eight hundred yards across, after having watered the
territories of the Coto and Orejone Indians.

It was on the morning of the 7th of June that the jangada was abreast
the little island of Mango, which causes the Napo to split into two
streams before falling into the Amazon.

Several years l