"Still objections!" shouted Benito.

"Ah, Manoel! you would not speak like that if you were already on
your way and Minha was waiting for you at the end."

"I am silent," replied Manoel; "I have no more to say. I obey. Let us
follow the liana!"

And off they went as happy as children home for their holidays.

This vegetable might take them far if they determined to follow it to
its extremity, like the thread of Ariadne, as far almost as that
which the heiress of Minos used to lead her from the labyrinth, and
perhaps entangle them more deeply.

It was in fact a creeper of the salses family, one of the cipos known
under the name of the red _"japicanga,"_ whose length sometimes
measures several miles. But, after all, they could leave it when they
liked.

The cipo passed from one tree to another without breaking its
continuity, sometimes twisting round the trunks, sometimes garlanding
the branches, here jumping form a dragon-tree to a rosewood, then
from a gigantic chestnut, the _"Bertholletia excelsa,"_ to some of
the wine palms, _"baccabas,"_ whose branches have been appropriately
compared by Agassiz to long sticks of coral flecked with green. Here
round _"tucumas,"_ or ficuses, capriciously twisted like centenarian
olive-trees, and of which Brazil had fifty-four varieties; here round
the kinds of euphorbias, which produce caoutchouc, _"gualtes,"_ noble