Tables, bamboo easy-chairs, cane sofas, carved wood
shelves, everything that constituted the charming furniture of the
tropics, was disposed with taste about the floating home. No one is
likely to imagine that the walls remained bare. The boards were
hidden beneath hangings of most agreeable variety. These hangings
were made of valuable bark, that of the _"tuturis,"_ which is raised
up in large folds like the brocades and damasks and softest and
richest materials of our modern looms. On the floors of the rooms
were jaguar skins, with wonderful spots, and thick monkey furs of
exquisite fleeciness. Light curtains of the russet silk, produced by
the _"sumauma,"_ hung from the windows. The beds, enveloped in
mosquito curtains, had their pillows, mattresses, and bolsters filled
with that fresh and elastic substance which in the Upper Amazon is
yielded by the bombax.
Throughout on the shelves and side-tables were little odds and ends,
brought from Rio Janeiro or Belem, those most precious to Minha being
such as had come from Manoel. What could be more pleasing in her eyes
than the knickknacks given by a loving hand which spoke to her
without saying anything?
In a few days the interior was completed, and it looked just like the
interior of the fazenda.
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