and, nor a single rapid, to check its course. The mouth is
about three thousand feet in width, and the river comes in some miles
above the site formerly occupied by the town of the same name, whose
possession was disputed for so long by Spaniards and Portuguese.

Up to the morning of the 30th of June there had been nothing particular
to distinguish the voyage. Occasionally they met a few vessels gliding
along by the banks attached one to another in such a way that a single
Indian could manage the whole--_"navigar de bubina,"_ as this kind
of navigation is called by the people of the country, that is to say,
"confidence navigation."

They had passed the island of Araria, the Archipelago of the Calderon
islands, the island of Capiatu, and many others whose names have not yet
come to the knowledge of geographers.

On the 30th of June the pilot signaled on the right the little village
of Jurupari-Tapera, where they halted for two or three hours.

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 a magnificent specimen which would not disgrace the collection of a
museum!" added Manoel.

"Did you take much trouble to catch the curious animal?" asked Minha.

"Yes, little sister," replied Benito, "and you were not there to ask
for mercy! These dogs die hard, and no less than three bullets were
necessary to bring this fellow down."

The ant-eater looked superb, with his long tail and grizzly hair; with
his pointed snout, which is plunged into the ant-hills whose insects
form its principal food; and his long, thin paws, armed with sharp
nails, five inches long, and which can shut up like the fingers of one's
hand. But what a hand was this hand of the ant-eater! When it has got
hold of anything you have to cut it off to make it let go! It is of this
hand that the traveler, Emile Carrey, has so justly observed: "The tiger
himself would perish in its grasp."

On the 2d of July, in the morning, the jangada arrived at the foot of
San Pablo d'Olivenca, after having floated through the midst of numerous
islands which in all seasons are clad with verdure and shaded with
magnifice