voice. "Let him recross it! and he will be still more at my mercy!
Pleasant journey to you, Joam Garral!"

And having uttered these words the captain of the woods, making for
the south so as to regain the left bank of the river by the shortest
road, disappeared into the dense forest.


CHAPTER III

THE GARRAL FAMILY

THE VILLAGE of Iquitos is situated on the left bank of the Amazon,
near the seventy-fourth meridian, on that portion of the great river
which still bears the name of the Marânon, and of which the bed
separates Peru from the republic of Ecuador. It is about fifty-five
leagues to the west of the Brazilian frontier.

Iquitos, like every other collection of huts, hamlet, or village met
with in the basin of the Upper Amazon, was founded by the
missionaries. Up to the seventeenth year of the century the Iquito
Indians, who then formed the entire population, were settled in the
interior of the province at some distance from the river. But one day
the springs in their territory all dried up under the influence of a
volcanic eruption, and they were obliged to come and take up their
abode on the left of the Marânon. The race soon altered through the
alliances which were entered into with the riverine Indians, Ticunas,
or Omaguas, mixed descent with a few Spaniards, and to-day Iquitos
has a population of two or three families of half-breeds.