"In a month," he said to him, "the jangada must be built and ready to
launch."

"We'll set to work this very day, sir."

It was a heavy task. There were about a hundred Indians and blacks,
and during the first fortnight in May they did wonders. Some people
unaccustomed to these great tree massacres would perhaps have groaned
to see giants many hundred years old fall in a few hours beneath the
axes of the woodmen; but there was such a quantity on the banks of
the river, up stream and down stream, even to the most distant points
of the horizon, that the felling of this half-mile of forest would
scarcely leave an appreciable void.

The superintendent of the men, after receiving the instructions of
Joam Garral, had first cleared the ground of the creepers, brushwood,
weeds, and arborescent plants which obstructed it. Before taking to
the saw and the ax they had armed themselves with a felling-sword,
that indispensable tool of every one who desires to penetrate the
Amazonian forests, a large blade slightly curved, wide and flat, and
two or three feet long, and strongly handled, which the natives wield
with consummate address. In a few hours, with the help of the
felling-sword, they had cleared the ground, cut down the underwood,
and opened large gaps into the densest portions of the wood.

In this way the work progressed. The ground was cleared in front of
the woodmen. The old trunks were divested of their clothing of
creepers, cacti, ferns, mosses, and bromelias. They were stripped
naked to the bark, until such time as the bark itself was stripped
from off them.