LE REMAINS to tell of the second part of the voyage down the mighty
river. It was but a series of days of joy. Joam Dacosta returned to a
new life, which shed its happiness on all who belonged to him.

The giant raft glided along with greater rapidity on the waters now
swollen by the floods. On the left they passed the small village of Don
Jose de Maturi, and on the right the mouth of that Madeira which owes
its name to the floating masses of vegetable remains and trunks denuded
of their foliage which it bears from the depths of Bolivia. They passed
the archipelago of Caniny, whose islets are veritable boxes of palms,
and before the village of Serpa, which, successively transported from
one back to the other, has definitely settled on the left of the river,
with its little houses, whose thresholds stand on the yellow carpet of
the beach.

The village of Silves, built on the left of the Amazon, and the town
of Villa Bella, which is the principal guarana market in the whole
province, were soon left behind by the giant raft. And so was the
village of Faro and its celebrated river of the Nhamundas, on which,
in 1539, Orellana asserted he was attacked by female warriors, who have
never been seen again since, and thus gave us the legend which justifies
the immortal name of the river of the Amazons.

Here it is that the province of Rio Negro terminates. The jurisdiction
of Para then commences; and on the 22d of September the family,
marveling much at a valley which has no equal in the world, entered that
portion of the Brazilian empire which has no boundary to the east except
the Atlantic.

"How magnificent!" remarked Minha, over and over again.

"How long!" murmured Manoel.

"How beautiful!" repeated Lina.

"When shall we get there?" murmured Fragoso.

And this was what might have been expected of these folks from the
different points of view, though time passed pleasantly enough with
them all the same. Benito, who was neither patient nor impatient, had
recovered all his former good humor.

Soon the jangada glided between interminable plantations of cocoa-trees
with their somber green flanked by the yellow thatch or ruddy tiles of
the roofs of the huts of the settlers on both banks from Obidos up to
the town of Monto Alegre.

Then there opened out the mouth of the Rio Trombetas, bathing with its
black waters the houses of Obidos, situated at about one hundred and
eighty miles from Belem, quite a small town, and ev