to arrange our dwelling to please ourselves. The outside belongs to
you, the inside to us. Mother and I would like it to be as though our
house at the fazenda went with us on the journey, so as to make you
fancy that we had never left Iquitos!"

"Do just as you like, Minha," replied Joam Garral, smiling in the sad
way he often did.

"That will be nice!"

"I leave everything to your good taste."

"And that will do us honor, father. It ought to, for the sake of the
splendid country we are going through--which is yours, by the way,
and into which you are to enter after so many years' absence."

"Yes, Minha; yes," replied Joam. "It is rather as if we were
returning from exile--voluntary exile! Do your best; I approve
beforehand of what you do."

On Minha and Lina, to whom were added of their own free will Manoel
on the one side and Fragoso on the other, devolved the care of
decorating the inside of the house. With some imagination and a
little artistic feeling the result was highly satisfactory.

The best furniture of the fazenda naturally found its place within,
as after arriving in Para they could easily return it by one of the
_igariteos_. Tables, bamboo easy-chairs, cane sofas, carved wood
shelves, everything that constituted the charming furniture of the
tropics, was disposed with taste about the floating home. No one is