Jules Verne (23 page)

THE TOWN of Manaos is in 3° 8' 4" south latitude, and 67° 27' west
longitude, reckoning from the Paris meridian. It is some four hundred
and twenty leagues from Belem, and about ten miles from the
embouchure
of the Rio Negro.

Manaos is not built on the Amazon. It is on the left bank of the Rio
Negro, the most important and remarkable of all the tributaries of
the great artery of Brazil, that the capital of the province, with its
picturesque group of private houses and public buildings, towers above
the surrounding plain.

The Rio Negro, which was discovered by the Spaniard Favella in 1645,
rises in the very heart of the province of Popayan, on the flanks of the
mountains which separate Brazil from New Grenada, and it communicates
with the Orinoco by two of its affluents, the Pimichin and the
Cassiquary.

After a noble course of some seventeen hundred miles it mingles its
cloudy waters with those of the Amazon through a mouth eleven hundred
feet wide, but such is its vigorous influx that many a mile has to
be completed before those waters lose their distinctive character.
Hereabouts the ends of both its banks trend off and form a huge bay
fifteen leagues across, extending to the islands of Anavilhanas; and in
one of its indentations the port of Manaos is situated. Vessels of all
kinds are there collected in great numbers, some moored in the
stream awaiting a favorable wind, others under repair up the numerous
iguarapes,
or canals, which so capriciously intersect the town, and
give it its slightly Dutch appearance.

With the introduction of steam vessels, which is now rapidly taking
place, the trade of Manaos is destined to increase enormously. Woods
used in building and furniture work, cocoa, caoutchouc, coffee,
sarsaparilla, sugar-canes, indigo, muscado nuts, salt fish, turtle
butter, and other commodities, are brought here from all parts, down the
innumerable streams into the Rio Negro from the west and north, into
the Madeira from the west and south, and then into the Amazon, and by it
away eastward to the coast of the Atlantic.

Manaos was formerly called Moura, or Barra de Rio Negro. From 1757 to
1804 it was only part of the captaincy which bears the name of the
great river at whose mouth it is placed; but since 1826 it has been the
capital of the large province of Amazones, borrowing its latest name
from an Indian tribe which formerly existed in these parts of equatorial
America.

Careless travelers have frequently confounded it with the famous Manoa,
a city of romance, built, it was reported, near the legendary lake of
Parima—which would seem to be merely the Upper Branco, a tributary of
the Rio Negro. Here was the Empire of El Dorado, whose monarch, if we
are to believe the fables of the district, was every morning covered
with powder of gold, there being so much of the precious metal abounding
in this privileged locality that it was swept up with the very dust
of the streets. This assertion, however, when put to the test, was
disproved, and with extreme regret, for the auriferous deposits which
had deceived the greedy scrutiny of the gold-seekers turned out to be
only worthless flakes of mica!

In short, Manaos has none of the fabulous splendors of the mythical
capital of El Dorado. It is an ordinary town of about five thousand
inhabitants, and of these at least three thousand are in government
employ. This fact is to be attributed to the number of its public
buildings, which consist of the legislative chamber, the government
house, the treasury, the post-office, and the custom-house, and, in
addition, a college founded in 1848, and a hospital erected in 1851.
When with these is also mentioned a cemetery on the south side of a
hill, on which, in 1669, a fortress, which has since been demolished,
was thrown up against the pirates of the Amazon, some idea can be gained
as to the importance of the official establishments of the city. Of
religious buildings it would be difficult to find more than two, the
small Church of the Conception and the Chapel of Notre Dame des Remedes,
built on a knoll which overlooks the town. These are very few for a town
of Spanish origin, though to them should perhaps be added the Carmelite
Convent, burned down in 1850, of which only the ruins remain. The
population of Manaos does not exceed the number above given, and after
reckoning the public officials and soldiers, is principally made of up
Portuguese and Indian merchants belonging to the different tribes of the
Rio Negro.

Three principal thoroughfares of considerable irregularity run through
the town, and they bear names highly characteristic of the tone of
thought prevalent in these parts—God-the-Father Street, God-the-Son
Street, and God-the-Holy Ghost Street!

In the west of the town is a magnificent avenue of centenarian orange
trees which were carefully respected by the architects who out of the
old city made the new. Round these principal thoroughfares is interwoven
a perfect network of unpaved alleys, intersected every now and then by
four canals, which are occasionally crossed by wooden bridges. In a few
places these iguarapes flow with their brownish waters through large
vacant spaces covered with straggling weeds and flowers of startling
hues, and here and there are natural squares shaded by magnificent
trees, with an occasional white-barked sumaumeira shooting up, and
spreading out its large dome-like parasol above its gnarled branches.

The private houses have to be sought for among some hundreds of
dwellings, of very rudimentary type, some roofed with tiles, others with
interlaced branches of the palm-tree, and with prominent miradors, and
projecting shops for the most part tenanted by Portuguese traders.

And what manner of people are they who stroll on to the fashionable
promenade from the public buildings and private residences? Men of good
appearance, with black cloth coats, chimney-pot hats, patent-leather
boots, highly-colored gloves, and diamond pins in their necktie bows;
and women in loud, imposing toilets, with flounced dressed and headgear
of the latest style; and Indians, also on the road to Europeanization
in a way which bids fair to destroy every bit of local color in this
central portion of the district of the Amazon!

Such is Manaos, which, for the benefit of the reader, it was necessary
to sketch. Here the voyage of the giant raft, so tragically interrupted,
had just come to a pause in the midst of its long journey, and here will
be unfolded the further vicissitudes of the mysterious history of the
fazender of Iquitos.

SCARCELY HAD the pirogue which bore off Joam Garral, or rather Joam
Dacosta—for it is more convenient that he should resume his real
name—disappeared, than Benito stepped up to Manoel.

"What is it you know?" he asked.

"I know that your father is innocent! Yes, innocent!" replied Manoel,
"and that he was sentenced to death twenty-three years ago for a crime
which he never committed!"

"He has told you all about it, Manoel?"

"All about it," replied the young man. "The noble fazender did not wish
that any part of his past life should be hidden from him who, when he
marries his daughter, is to be his second son."

"And the proof of his innocence my father can one day produce?"

"That proof, Benito, lies wholly in the twenty-three years of an
honorable and honored life, lies entirely in the bearing of Joam
Dacosta, who comes forward to say to justice, 'Here am I! I do not care
for this false existence any more. I do not care to hide under a name
which is not my true one! You have condemned an innocent man! Confess
your errors and set matters right.'"

"And when my father spoke like that, you did not hesitate for a moment
to believe him?"

"Not for an instant," replied Manoel.

The hands of the two young fellows closed in a long and cordial grasp.

Then Benito went up to Padre Passanha.

"Padre," he said, "take my mother and sister away to their rooms. Do not
leave them all day. No one here doubts my father's innocence—not one,
you know that! To-morrow my mother and I will seek out the chief of the
police. They will not refuse us permission to visit the prison. No! that
would be too cruel. We will see my father again, and decide what steps
shall be taken to procure his vindication."

Yaquita was almost helpless, but the brave woman, though nearly crushed
by this sudden blow, arose. With Yaquita Dacosta it was as with Yaquita
Garral. She had not a doubt as to the innocence of her husband. The
idea even never occurred to her that Joam Dacosta had been to blame in
marrying her under a name which was not his own. She only thought of the
life of happiness she had led with the noble man who had been injured so
unjustly. Yes! On the morrow she would go to the gate of the prison, and
never leave it until it was opened!

Padre Passanha took her and her daughter, who could not restrain her
tears, and the three entered the house.

The two young fellows found themselves alone.

"And now," said Benito, "I ought to know all that my father has told
you."

"I have nothing to hide from you."

"Why did Torres come on board the jangada?"

"To see to Joam Dacosta the secret of his past life."

"And so, when we first met Torres in the forest of Iquitos, his plan had
already been formed to enter into communication with my father?"

"There cannot be a doubt of it," replied Manoel. "The scoundrel was on
his way to the fazenda with the idea of consummating a vile scheme of
extortion which he had been preparing for a long time."

"And when he learned from us that my father and his whole family were
about to pass the frontier, he suddenly changed his line of conduct?"

"Yes. Because Joam Dacosta once in Brazilian territory became more at
his mercy than while within the frontiers of Peru. That is why we
found Torres at Tabatinga, where he was waiting in expectation of our
arrival."

"And it was I who offered him a passage on the raft!" exclaimed Benito,
with a gesture of despair.

"Brother," said Manoel, "you need not reproach yourself. Torres would
have joined us sooner or later. He was not the man to abandon such
a trail. Had we lost him at Tabatinga, we should have found him at
Manaos."

"Yes, Manoel, you are right. But we are not concerned with the past now.
We must think of the present. An end to useless recriminations! Let us
see!" And while speaking, Benito, passing his hand across his forehead,
endeavored to grasp the details of the strange affair.

"How," he asked, "did Torres ascertain that my father had been sentenced
twenty-three years back for this abominable crime at Tijuco?"

"I do not know," answered Manoel, "and everything leads me to think that
your father did not know that."

"But Torres knew that Garral was the name under which Joam Dacosta was
living?"

"Evidently."

"And he knew that it was in Peru, at Iquitos, that for so many years my
father had taken refuge?"

"He knew it," said Manoel, "but how he came to know it I do not
understand."

"One more question," continued Benito. "What was the proposition that
Torres made to my father during the short interview which preceded his
expulsion?"

"He threatened to denounce Joam Garral as being Joam Dacosta, if he
declined to purchase his silence."

"And at what price?"

"At the price of his daughter's hand!" answered Manoel unhesitatingly,
but pale with anger.

"The scoundrel dared to do that!" exclaimed Benito.

"To this infamous request, Benito, you saw the reply that your father
gave."

"Yes, Manoel, yes! The indignant reply of an honest man. He kicked
Torres off the raft. But it is not enough to have kicked him out. No!
That will not do for me. It was on Torres' information that they came
here and arrested my father; is not that so?"

"Yes, on his denunciation."

"Very well," continued Benito, shaking his fist toward the left bank of
the river, "I must find out Torres. I must know how he became master of
the secret. He must tell me if he knows the real author of this crime.
He shall speak out. And if he does not speak out, I know what I shall
have to do."

"What you will have to do is for me to do as well!" added Manoel, more
coolly, but not less resolutely.

"No! Manoel, no, to me alone!"

"We are brothers, Benito," replied Manoel. "The right of demanding an
explanation belongs to us both."

Benito made no reply. Evidently on that subject his decision was
irrevocable.

At this moment the pilot Araujo, who had been observing the state of the
river, came up to them.

"Have you decided," he asked, "if the raft is to remain at her moorings
at the Isle of Muras, or to go on to the port of Manaos?"

The question had to be decided before nightfall, and the sooner it was
settled the better.

In fact, the news of the arrest of Joam Dacosta ought already to have
spread through the town. That it was of a nature to excite the interest
of the population of Manaos could scarcely be doubted. But would it
provoke more than curiosity against the condemned man, who was the
principal author of the crime of Tijuco, which had formerly created such
a sensation? Ought they not to fear that some popular movement might be
directed against the prisoner? In the face of this hypothesis was it not
better to leave the jangada moored near the Isle of Muras on the right
bank of the river at a few miles from Manaos?

The pros and cons of the question were well weighed.

"No!" at length exclaimed Benito; "to remain here would look as though
we were abandoning my father and doubting his innocence—as though we
were afraid to make common cause with him. We must go to Manaos, and
without delay."