offices, the cabins of the blacks, and
the huts of the Indians. From the bank of the river, bordered with reeds
and aquatic plants, the tree-encircled house was alone visible.

A vast meadow, laboriously cleared along the lagoons, offered excellent
pasturage. Cattle abounded--a new source of profit in these fertile
countries, where a herd doubles in four years, and where ten per cent.
interest is earned by nothing more than the skins and the hides of
the animals killed for the consumption of those who raise them! A few
_"sitios,"_ or manioc and coffee plantations, were started in parts of
the woods which were cleared. Fields of sugar-canes soon required the
construction of a mill to crush the sacchariferous stalks destined to be
used hereafter in the manufacture of molasses, tafia, and rum. In short,
ten years after the arrival of Joam Garral at the farm at Iquitos
the fazenda had become one of the richest establishments on the Upper
Amazon. Thanks to the good management exercised by the young clerk
over the works at home and the business abroad, its prosperity daily
increased.

The Portuguese did not wait so long to acknowledge what he owed to Joam
Garral. In order to recompense him in proportion to his merits he had
from the first given him an interest in the profits of his business,
and four years after his arrival he had made him a partner on the same
footing as himself, and with equal shares.

But there was more that he had in store for him. Yaquita, his daughter,
had, in this silent young man, so gentle to others, so stern to himself,
recognized the sterling qualities which her father had done. She was in
love with him, but though on his side Joam had not remained insensible
to the merits and the beauty of this excellent girl, he was too proud
and reserved to dream of asking her to marry him.

A serious incident hastened the solution.

Magalhaes was one day superintending a clearance and was mortally
wounded by the fall of a tree. Carried home helpless to the farm, and
feeling himself lost, he raised up Yaquita, who was weeping by his side,
took her hand, and put it into that of Joam Garral, making him swear to
take her for his wife.

"You have made my fortune," he said, "and I shall not die in peace
unless by this union I know that the fortune of my daughter is assured."

"I can continue her devoted servant, her brother, her protector, without
being her husband," Joam Garral had at first replied. "I owe y