the right of the river through the spaces between
the islands.

Many natives, with shaved heads, tattooed cheeks and foreheads, carrying
plates of metal in the lobes of their ears, noses, and lower lips,
appeared for an instant on the shore. They were armed with arrows
and blow tubes, but made no use of them, and did not even attempt to
communicate with the jangada.

CHAPTER XI. FROM PEVAS TO THE FRONTIER

DURING THE FEW days which followed nothing occurred worthy of note. The
nights were so fine that the long raft went on its way with the stream
without even a halt. The two picturesque banks of the river seemed to
change like the panoramas of the theaters which unroll from one wing to
another. By a kind of optical illusion it appeared as though the raft
was motionless between two moving pathways.

Benito had no shooting on the banks, for no halt was made, but game was
very advantageously replaced by the results of the fishing.

A great variety of excellent fish were taken--_"pacos," "surubis,"
"gamitanas,"_ of exquisite flavor, and several of those large rays
called _"duridaris,"_ with rose-colored stomachs and black backs armed
with highly poisonous darts. There were also collected by thousands
those _"candirus,"_ a kind of small silurus, of which many are
microscopic, and which so frequently make a pincushion of the calves of
the bather when he imprudently ventures into their haunts.

The rich waters of the Amazon were also frequented by many other aquatic
animals, which escorted the jangada through its waves for whole hours
together.

There were the gigantic _"pria-rucus,"_ ten and twelve feet long,
cuirassed with large scales with scarlet borders, whose flesh was not
much appreciated by the natives. Neither did they care to capture many
of the graceful dolphins which played about in hundreds, striking with
their tails the planks of the raft, gamboling at the bow and stern, and
making the water alive with colored reflections and spurts of spray,
which the refracted light converted into so many rainbows.

On the 16th of June the jangada, after fortunately clearing several
shallows in approaching the banks, arrived near the large island of
San Pablo, and the following evening she stopped at the village of
Moromoros, which is situated on the left side of the Amazon. Twenty-four
hours afterward, passing the mouths of the Atacoari or Cocha--or
rather the _"furo,"_ or canal, which communicates with the lak