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 



