ito laughingly. "More than fifteen hundred
inhabitants! Two hundred houses at the very least! Some of them with a
first floor! And two or three streets! Genuine streets!"

"My dear Manoel!" said Minha, "do protect us against my brother! He is
making fun of us, and only because he had already been in the finest
towns in Amazones and Para!"

"Quite so, and he is also poking fun at his mother," added Yaquita, "for
I confess I never saw anything equal to this!"

"Then, mother and sister, you must take great care that you do not fall
into a trance when you get to Manaos, and vanish altogether when you
reach Belem!"

"Never fear," answered Manoel; "the ladies will have been gently
prepared for these grand wonders by visiting the principal cities of the
Upper Amazon!"

"Now, Manoel," said Minha, "you are talking just like my brother! Are
you making fun of us, too?"

"No, Minha, I assure you."

"Laugh on, gentlemen," said Lina, "and let us look around, my dear
mistress, for it is very fine!"

Very fine! A collection of houses, built of mud, whitewashed, and
principally covered with thatch or palm-leaves; a few built of stone
or wood, with verandas, doors, and shutters painted a bright green,
standing in the middle of a small orchard of orange-trees in flower.
But there were two or three public buildings, a barrack, and a church
dedicated to St. Theresa, which was a cathedral by the side of the
modest chapel at Iquitos. On looking toward the lake a beautiful
panorama unfolded itself, bordered by a frame of cocoanut-trees and
assais, which ended at the edge of the liquid level, and showed beyond
the picturesque village of Noqueira, with its few small houses lost in
the mass of the old olive-trees on the beach.

But for the two girls there was another cause of wonderment, quite
feminine wonderment too, in the fashions of the fair Egans, not the
primitive costume of the natives, converted Omaas or Muas, but the
dress of true Brazilian ladies. The wives and daughters of the principal
functionaries and merchants o the town pretentiously showed off their
Parisian toilettes, a little out of date perhaps, for Ega is five
hundred leagues away from Para, and this is itself many thousands of
miles from Paris.

"Just look at those fine ladies in their fine clothes!"

"Lina will go mad!" exclaimed Benito.

"If those dresses were worn properly," said Minha, "they might not be so
ridiculous!"

"My dear Minha," said Manoel, "w