FROM PARA TO MANAOS. 181 
in the corner, and, opening the lid slightly, throw in re- 
peated kisses, touching her lips to her fingers and making 
gestures as if she dropped the kisses into the trunk, crossing 
herself at intervals as she did so. In the evening she was 
again at the dance, and, with the other two women, went 
through with a sort of religious dance, chanting the while, 
and carrying in their hands a carved arch of wood which 
they waved to and fro in time to the chant. When I asked 
Esperan^a the meaning of this, she told me that, though 
they went to the neighboring town of Villa Bella for the 
great fete of our Lady of Nazareth, they kept it also 
at home on their return, and this was a part of their 
ceremonies. And then she asked me to come in with 
her, and, leading the way to my room, introduced me to 
the contents of the precious trunk ; there was our Lady of 
Nazareth, a common coarse print, framed in wood, one or 
two other smaller colored prints and a few candles; over the 
whole was thrown a blue gauze. It was the family chapel, 
and she showed me all the things, taking them up one by 
one with a kind of tender, joyful reverence, only made the 
more touching by their want of any material value. 
We are now at another Indian house on the bank of an 
arm of the river Ramos, connecting the Amazons, through 
the Mauhes, with the Madeira. Our two hours' canoe-jour- 
ney yesterday, in the middle of the day, was somewhat hot 
and wearisome, though part of it lay through one of the 
shady narrow channels I have described before. The In- 
dians have a pretty name for these channels in the forest ; 
they call them Igarapes, that is, boat-paths, and they literally 
are in many places just wide enough for the canoe. At 
about four o'clock we arrived at our present lodging, which 
is by no means so pretty as the one we have left, though it 
