Manchurian Books

It was indeed a clean sweep; the trees were
cut to the level of the earth, to wait the day when their roots would
be got out, over which the coming spring would still spread its
verdant cloak.
This square space, washed on its sides by the waters of the river and
its tributary, was destined to be cleared, plowed, planted, and sown,
and the following year fields of manioc, coffee-shrubs, sugar-canes,
arrowroot, maize, and peanuts would occupy the ground so recently
covered by the trees.
The last week of the month had not arrived when the trunks,
classified according to their varieties and specific gravity, were
symmetrically arranged on the bank of the Amazon, at the spot where
the immense jangada was to be guilt--which, with the different
habitations for the accommodation of the crew, would become a
veritable floating village--to wait the time when the waters of the
river, swollen by the floods, would raise it and carry it for
hundreds of leagues to the Atlantic coast.
The whole time the work was going on Joam Garral had been engaged in
superintending it.


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