he interior of the most savage regions
of the world.

For fifty years Padre Passanha had lived at Iquitos, in the mission of
which he was the chief. He was loved by all, and worthily so. The Garral
family held him in great esteem; it was he who had married the daughter
of Farmer Magalhaes to the clerk who had been received at the fazenda.
He had known the children from birth; he had baptized them, educated
them, and hoped to give each of them the nuptial blessing.

The age of the padre did not allow of his exercising his important
ministry any longer. The horn of retreat for him had sounded; he was
about to be replaced at Iquitos by a younger missionary, and he was
preparing to return to Para, to end his days in one of those convents
which are reserved for the old servants of God.

What better occasion could offer than that of descending the river with
the family which was as his own? They had proposed it to him, and he had
accepted, and when arrived at Belem he was to marry the young couple,
Minha and Manoel.

But if Padre Passanha during the course of the voyage was to take his
meals with the family, Joam Garral desired to build for him a dwelling
apart, and heaven knows what care Yaquita and her daughter took to make
him comfortable! Assuredly the good old priest had never been so lodged
in his modest parsonage!

The parsonage was not enough for Padre Passanha; he ought to have a
chapel.

The chapel then was built in the center of the jangada, and a little
bell surmounted it.

It was small enough, undoubtedly, and it could not hold the whole of
the crew, but it was richly decorated, and if Joam Garral found his
own house on the raft, Padre Passanha had no cause to regret the
poverty-stricken church of Iquitos.

Such was the wonderful structure which was going down the Amazon. It was
then on the bank waiting till the flood came to carry it away. From the
observation and calculation of the rising it would seem as though there
was not much longer to wait.

All was ready to date, the 5th of June.

The pilot arrived the evening before. He was a man about fifty, well up
in his profession, but rather fond of drink. Such as he was, Joam Garral
in large matters at different times had employed him to take his rafts
to Belem, and he had never had cause to repent it.

It is as well to add that Araujo--that was his name--never saw better
than when he had imbibed a few glasses of tafia; and he never did any
work at