If a thicket barred the road the felling-sword cut a deep gap, and
the group passed in. If it was a high rock, carpeted with verdure,
over which the liana twisted like a serpent, they climbed it and
passed on.
A large break now appeared. There, in the more open air, which is as
necessary to it as the light of the sun, the tree of the tropics,
_par excellence,_ which, according to Humboldt, "accompanies man in
the infancy of his civilization," the great provider of the
inhabitant of the torrid zones, a banana-tree, was standing alone.
The long festoon of the liana curled round its higher branches,
moving away to the other side of the clearing, and disappeared again
into the forest.
"Shall we stop soon?" asked Manoel.
"No; a thousand times no!" cried Benito, "not without having reached
the end of it!"
"Perhaps," observed Minha, "it will soon be time to think of
returning."
"Oh, dearest mistress, let us go on again!" replied Lina.
"On forever!" added Benito.
And they plunged more deeply into the forest, which, becoming
clearer, allowed them to advance more easily.
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