of the year--and this would not constitute the permanent position
that a young man ought to wish for.

The Portuguese was right. Joam Garral saw it, and entered resolutely
into the service of the fazenda, deciding to devote to it all his
powers.

Magalhaës had no cause to regret his generous action. His business
recovered. His wood trade, which extended by means of the Amazon up
to Para, was soon considerably extended under the impulse of Joam
Garral. The fazenda began to grow in proportion, and to spread out
along the bank of the river up to its junction with the Nanay. A
delightful residence was made of the house; it was raised a story,
surrounded by a veranda, and half hidden under beautiful
trees--mimosas, fig-sycamores, bauhinias, and paullinias, whose
trunks were invisible beneath a network of scarlet-flowered bromelias
and passion-flowers.

At a distance, behind huge bushes and a dense mass of arborescent
plants, were concealed the buildings in which the staff of the
fazenda were accommodated--the servants' offices, the cabins of the
blacks, and the huts of the Indians. From the bank of the river,
bordered with reeds and aquatic plants, the tree-encircled house was
alone visible.

A vast meadow, laboriously cleared along the lagoons, offered
excellent pasturage. Cattle abounded--a new source of profit in these
fertile countries, where a herd doubles in four years, and where ten
per cent. interest is earned by nothing more than the skins and the
hides of the animals killed for the consumption of those who raise