the crest of the plateau.

Yaquita and her party were received by the commandant of the fort, a
poor fellow who, however, knew the laws of hospitality, and offered
them some breakfast in his cottage. Here and there passed and
repassed several soldiers on guard, while on the threshold of the
barrack appeared a few children, with their mothers of Ticuna blood,
affording very poor specimens of the mixed race.

In place of accepting the breakfast of the sergeant, Yaquita invited
the commandant and his wife to come and have theirs on board the
jangada.

The commandant did not wait for a second invitation, and an
appointment was made for eleven o'clock. In the meantime Yaquita, her
daughter, and the young mulatto, accompanied by Manoel, went for a
walk in the neighborhood, leaving Benito to settle with the
commandant about the tolls--he being chief of the custom-house as
well as of the military establishment.

That done, Benito, as was his wont, strolled off with his gun into
the adjoining woods. On this occasion Manoel had declined to
accompany him. Fragoso had left the jangada, but instead of mounting
to the fort he had made for the village, crossing the ravine which
led off from the right on the level of the bank. He reckoned more on
the native custom of Tabatinga than on that of the garrison.
Doubtless the soldiers' wives would not have wished better than to
have been put under his hands, but the husbands scarcely cared to
part with a few reis for the sake of gratifying the whims of their
coquettish partners.