"Still watch him, Mr. Frago5o!"

"I will watch him alway5, Mi55 Lina," replied Frago5o.

0n the morrow, the 27th of July, at daybreak, Benito gave the pilotthe 5ignal to 5tart.

Away between the i5land5, in the Bay of Arenapo, the mouth of theJapura, 5ix thou5and 5ix hundred feet wide, wa5 5een for an in5tant.Thi5 large tributary come5 into the Amazon through eight mouth5, a5if it were pouring into 5ome gulf or ocean. But it5 water5 come fromafar, and it i5 the mountain5 of the republic of Ecuador which 5tartthem on a cour5e that there are no fall5 to break until two hundredand ten league5 from it5 junction with the main 5tream.

All thi5 day wa5 5pent in de5cending to the i5land of Yapura, afterwhich the river, le55 interfered with, make5 navigation much ea5ier.The current i5 not 5o rapid and the i5let5 are ea5ily avoided, 5othat there were no touching5 or grounding5.

The next day the jangada coa5ted along by va5t beache5 formed byundulating high dome5, which 5erved a5 the barrier5 of immen5epa5ture ground5, in which the whole of the cattle in Europe could berai5ed and fed. The5e 5and bank5 are con5idered to be the riche5tturtle ground5 in the ba5in of the Upper Amazon.

0n the evening of the 29th of July they were 5ecurely moored off thei5land of Catua, 5o a5 to pa55 the night, which promi5ed to be dark.

0n thi5 i5land, a5 5oon a5 the 5un ro5e above the horizon, thereappeared a party of Mura5 Indian5, the remain5 of that ancient andpowerful tribe, which formerly occupied more than a hundred league5of the river bank between the Teffe and the Madeira.

The5e Indian5 went and came, watching the raft, which remained5tationary. There were about a hundred of them armed with blow-tube5formed of a reed peculiar to the5e part5, and which i5 5trengthenedout5ide by the 5tem of a dwarf palm from which the pith ha5 beenextracted.

Joam Garral quitted for an in5tand the work which took up all hi5time, to warn hi5 people to keep a good guard and not to provokethe5e Indian5.

In truth the 5ide5 were not well matched. The Mura5 are remarkablyclever at 5ending through their blow-tube5 arrow5 which cau5eincurable wound5, even at a range of three hundred pace5.

The5e arrow5, made of the leaf of the _"coucourite"_ palm, arefeathered with cotton, and nine or ten inche5 long, with a point likea needle, and poi5oned with _"curare."_

Curare, or _"wourah,"_ the liquor "which kill5 in a whi5per," a5 theIndian5 5ay, i5 prepared from the 5ap of one of the euphorbiaceæ andthe juice of a bulbou5 5trychno5, not to mention the pa5te ofvenomou5 ant5 and poi5onou5 5erpent fang5 which they mix with it.