ve just remarked, the course of the Amazon was
not yet furrowed by the numberless steam vessels, which companies were
only then thinking of putting into the river. The service was worked by
individuals on their own account alone, and often the boats were only
employed in the business of the riverside establishments.

These boats were either _"ubas,"_ canoes made from the trunk of a tree,
hollowed out by fire, and finished with the ax, pointed and light in
front, and heavy and broad in the stern, able to carry from one to
a dozen paddlers, and of three or four tons burden: _"egariteas,"_
constructed on a larger scale, of broader design, and leaving on each
side a gangway for the rowers: or _"jangada,"_ rafts of no particular
shape, propelled by a triangular sail, and surmounted by a cabin of mud
and straw, which served the Indian and his family for a floating home.

These three kinds of craft formed the lesser flotilla of the Amazon, and
were only suited for a moderate traffic of passengers or merchandise.

Larger vessels, however, existed, either _"vigilingas,"_ ranging from
eight up to ten tons, with three masts rigged with red sails, and which
in calm weather were rowed by four long paddles not at all easy to work
against the stream; or _"cobertas,"_ of twenty tons burden, a kind
of junk with a poop behind and a cabin down below, with two masts and
square sails of unequal size, and propelled, when the wind fell, by six
long sweeps which Indians worked from a forecastle.

But neither of these vessels satisfied Joam Garral. From the moment that
he had resolved to descend the Amazon he had thought of making the most
of the voyage by carrying a huge convoy of goods into Para. From this
point of view there was no necessity to descend the river in a hurry.
And the determination to which he had come pleased every one, excepting,
perhaps, Manoel, who would for very good reasons have preferred some
rapid steamboat.

But though the means of transport devised by Joam were primitive in the
extreme, he was going to take with him a numerous following and abandon
himself to the stream under exceptional conditions of comfort and
security.

It would be, in truth, as if a part of the fazenda of Iquitos had
been cut away from the bank and carried down the Amazon with all that
composed the family of the fazender--masters and servants, in their
dwellings, their cottages, and their huts.

The settlement of Iquitos included a part of