"That you were very busy in the library at the fazenda, and that you
promised to make me very learned about everything connected with the
Upper Amazon. We know very little about it in Para, and here we have
been passing several islands and you have not even told me their
names!"

"What is the good of that?" said she.

"Yes; what is the good of it?" repeated Benito. "What can be the use
of remembering the hundreds of names in the 'Tupi' dialect with which
these islands are dressed out? It is enough to know them. The
Americans are much more practical with their Mississippi islands;
they number them----"

"As they number the avenues and streets of their towns," replied
Manoel. "Frankly, I don't care much for that numerical system; it
conveys nothing to the imagination--Sixty-fourth Island or
Sixty-fifth Island, any more than Sixth Street or Third Avenue. Don't
you agree with me, Minha?"

"Yes, Manoel; though I am of somewhat the same way of thinking as my
brother. But even if we do not know their names, the islands of our
great river are truly splendid! See how they rest under the shadows
of those gigantic palm-trees with their drooping leaves! And the
girdle of reeds which encircles them through which a pirogue can with
difficulty make its way! And the mangrove trees, whose fantastic
roots buttress them to the bank like the claws of some gigantic crab!
Yes, the islands are beautiful, but, beautiful as they are, they
cannot equal the one we have made our own!"