To conclude our description of the jangada, we have only to speak of
one or two erections of different kinds which gave it a very
picturesque aspect.

In the bow was the cabin of the pilot--we say in the bow, and not at
the stern, where the helmsman is generally found. In navigating under
such circumstances a rudder is of no use. Long oars have no effect on
a raft of such dimensions, even when worked with a hundred sturdy
arms. It was from the sides, by means of long boathooks or props
thrust against the bed of the stream, that the jangada was kept in
the current, and had its direction altered when going astray. By this
means they could range alongside either bank, if they wished for any
reason to come to a halt. Three or four ubas, and two pirogues, with
the necessary rigging, were carried on board, and afforded easy
communications with the banks. The pilot had to look after the
channels of the river, the deviations of the current, the eddies
which it was necessary to avoid, the creeks or bays which afforded
favorable anchorage, and to do this he had to be in the bow.

If the pilot was the material director of this immense machine--for
can we not justly call it so?--another personage was its spiritual
director; this was Padre Passanha, who had charge of the mission at
Iquitos.

A religious family, like that of Joam Garral's, had availed
themselves enthusiastically of this occasion of taking him with them.

Padre Passanha, then aged seventy, was a man of great worth, full of
evangelical fervor, charitable and good, and in countries where the