hundreds of leagues to the Atlantic coast.

The whole time the work was going on Joam Garral had been engaged in
superintending it. From the clearing to the bank of the fazenda he
had formed a large mound on which the portions of the raft were
disposed, and to this matter he had attended entirely himself.

Yaquita was occupied with Cybele with the preparations for the
departure, though the old negress could not be made to understand why
they wanted to go or what they hoped to see.

"But you will see things that you never saw before," Yaquita kept
saying to her.

"Will they be better than what I see now?" was Cybele's invariable
reply.

Minha and her favorite for their part took care of what more
particularly concerned them. They were not preparing for a simple
voyage; for them it was a permanent departure, and there were a
thousand details to look after for settling in the other country in
which the young mulatto was to live with the mistress to whom she was
so devotedly attached. Minha was a trifle sorrowful, but the joyous
Lina was quite unaffected at leaving Iquitos. Minha Valdez would be
the same to her as Minha Garral, and to check her spirits she would
have to be separated from her mistress, and that was never thought
of.

Benito had actively assisted his father in the work, which was on the
point of completion. He commenced his apprenticeship to the trade of