“Poor lady!” said Minha.
“Above all, poor mother!” answered Yaquita.
At this moment Araujo, the pilot, came aft and said:
“Joam Garral, we are off the Ronde Island. We are passing the frontier!”
“The frontier!” replied Joam.
And rising, he went to the side of the jangada, and looked long and earnestly at the Ronde Island, with the waves breaking up against it. Then his hand sought his forehead, as if to rid himself of some remembrance.
“The frontier!” murmured he, bowing his head by an involuntary movement.
But an instant after his head was raised, and his expression was that of a man resolved to do his duty to the last.
XII
Fragoso at Work
Braza (burning embers) is a word found in the Spanish language as far back as the twelfth century. It has been used to make the word “brazil,” as descriptive of certain woods which yield a reddish dye. From this has come the name “Brazil,” given to that vast district of South America which is crossed by the equator, and in which these products are so frequently met with. In very early days these woods were the object of considerable trade. Although correctly called ibirapitunga, from the place of production, the name of brazil stuck to them, and it has become that of the country, which seems like an immense heap of embers lighted by the rays of the tropical sun.
Brazil was from the first occupied by the Portuguese. About the commencement of the sixteenth century, Alvarez Cabral, the pilot, took possession of it, and although France and Holland partially established themselves there, it has remained Portuguese, and possesses all the qualities which distinguish that gallant little nation. It is today the largest state of South America, and has at its head the intelligent artist-king Dom Pedro.
“What is your privilege in the tribe?” asked Montaigne of an Indian whom he met at Havre.
“The privilege of marching first to battle!” innocently answered the Indian.
War, we know, was for a long time the surest and most rapid vehicle of civilization. The Brazilians did what this Indian did: they fought, they defended their conquests, they enlarged them, and we see them marching in the first rank of the civilizing advance.
It was in 1824, sixteen years after the foundation of the Portugo-Brazilian Empire, that Brazil proclaimed its independence by the voice of Don Juan, whom the French armies had chased from Portugal.
It remained only to define the frontier between the new empire and that of its neighbor, Peru. This was no easy matter.
If Brazil wished to extend to the Rio Napo in the west, Peru attempted to reach eight degrees further, as far as the Lake of Ega.
But in the meantime Brazil had to interfere to hinder the kidnapping of the Indians from the Amazon, a practice which was engaged in much to the profit of the Hispano-Brazilian missions. There was no better method of checking this trade than that of fortifying the Island of the Ronde, a little above Tabatinga, and there establishing a post.
This afforded the solution, and from that time the frontier of the two countries passed through the middle of this island.
Above, the river is Peruvian, and is called the Marañón, as has been said. Below, it is Brazilian, and takes the name of the Amazon.
It was on the evening of the 25th of June that the jangada stopped before Tabatinga, the first Brazilian town situated on the left bank, at the entrance of the river of which it bears the name, and belonging to the parish of St. Paul, established on the right a little further down stream.
Joam Garral had decided to pass thirty-six hours here, so as to give a little rest to the crew. They would not start, therefore, until the morning of the 27th.
On this occasion Yaquita and her children, less likely, perhaps, than at Iquitos to be fed upon by the native mosquitoes, had announced their intention of going on ashore and visiting the town.
The population of Tabatinga is estimated at four hundred, nearly all Indians, comprising, no doubt, many of those wandering families who are never settled at particular spots on the banks of the Amazon or its smaller tributaries.
The post at the island of the Ronde has been abandoned for some years, and transferred to Tabatinga. It can thus be called a garrison town, but the garrison is only composed of nine soldiers, nearly all Indians, and a sergeant, who is the actual commandant of the place.
A bank about thirty feet high, in which are cut the steps of a not very solid staircase, forms here the curtain of the esplanade which carries the pygmy fort. The house of the commandant consists of a couple of huts placed in a square, and the soldiers occupy an oblong building a hundred feet away, at the foot of a large tree.
The collection of cabins exactly resembles all the villages and hamlets which are scattered along the banks of the river, although in them a flagstaff carrying the Brazilian colors does not rise above a sentry-box, forever destitute of its sentinel, nor are four small mortars present to cannonade on an emergency any vessel which does not come in when ordered.
As for the village properly so called, it is situated below, at
