eater part of the
cargo.

"It is truly very beautiful," said Minha, "and it would be very pleasant
for us always to travel in this way, on this quiet water, shaded from
the rays of the sun."

"At the same time pleasant and dangerous, dear Minha," said Manoel. "In
a pirogue there is doubtless nothing to fear in sailing here, but on a
huge raft of wood better have a free course and a clear stream."

"We shall be quite through the forest in a couple of hours," said the
pilot.

"Look well at it, then!" said Lina. "All these beautiful things pass so
quickly! Ah! dear mistress! do you see the troops of monkeys disporting
in the higher branches, and the birds admiring themselves in the
pellucid water!"

"And the flowers half-opened on the surface," replied Minha, "and which
the current dandles like the breeze!"

"And the long lianas, which so oddly stretch from one tree to another!"
added the young mulatto.

"And no Fragoso at the end of them!" said Lina's betrothed. "That was
rather a nice flower you gathered in the forest of Iquitos!"

"Just behold the flower--the only one in the world," said Lina
quizzingly; "and, mistress! just look at the splendid plants!"

And Lina pointed to the nymphaeas with their colossal leaves, whose
flowers bear buds as large as cocoanuts. Then, just where the banks
plunged beneath the waters, there were clumps of _"mucumus,"_ reeds with
large leaves, whose elastic stems bend to give passage to the pirogues
and close again behind them. There was there what would tempt any
sportsman, for a whole world of aquatic birds fluttered between the
higher clusters, which shook with the stream.

Ibises half-lollingly posed on some old trunk, and gray herons
motionless on one leg, solemn flamingoes who from a distance looked like
red umbrellas scattered in the foliage, and phenicopters of every color,
enlivened the temporary morass.

And along the top of the water glided long and swiftly-swimming
snakes, among them the formidable gymnotus, whose electric discharges
successively repeated paralyze the most robust of men or animals,
and end by dealing death. Precautions had to be taken against the
_"sucurijus"_ serpents, which, coiled round the trunk of some tree,
unroll themselves, hang down, seize their prey, and draw it into their
rings, which are powerful enough to crush a bullock. Have there not been
met with in these Amazonian forests reptiles from thirty to thirty-five
feet long? and even,