"Alas, no!" replied Lina.

"What a pity!" Fragoso thought it proper to add.

"And the 'Mae d'Aqua,'" continued the girl--"that proud and
redoubtable woman whose look fascinates and drags beneath the waters
of the river the imprudent ones who gaze a her."

"Oh, as for the 'Mae d'Aqua,' she exists!" cried the naïve Lina;
"they say that she still walks on the banks, but disappears like a
water sprite as soon as you approach her."

"Very well, Lina," said Benito; "the first time you see her just let
me know."

"So that she may seize you and take you to the bottom of the river?
Never, Mr. Benito!"

"She believes it!" shouted Minha.

"There are people who believe in the trunk of Manaos," said Fragoso,
always ready to intervene on behalf of Lina.

"The 'trunk of Manaos'?" asked Manoel. "What about the trunk of
Manaos?"

"Mr. Manoel," answered Fragoso, with comic gravity, "it appears that
there is--or rather formerly was--a trunk of _'turuma,'_ which every
year at the same time descended the Rio Negro, stopping several days