"If those dresses were worn properly," said Minha, "they might not be
so ridiculous!"
"My dear Minha," said Manoel, "with your simple gown and straw hat,
you are better dressed than any one of these Brazilians, with their
headgear and flying petticoats, which are foreign to their country
and their race."
"If it pleases you to think so," answered Minha, "I do not envy any
of them."
But they had come to see. They walked through the streets, which
contained more stalls than shops; they strolled about the
market-place, the rendezvous of the fashionable, who were nearly
stifled in their European clothes; they even breakfasted at an
hotel--it was scarcely an inn--whose cookery caused them to deeply
regret the excellent service on the raft.
After dinner, at which only turtle flesh, served up in different
forms, appeared, the Garral family went for the last time to admire
the borders of the lake as the setting sun gilded it with its rays;
then they rejoined their pirogue, somewhat disillusioned perhaps as
to the magnificence of a town which one hour would give time enough
to visit, and a little tired with walking about its stifling streets
which were not nearly so pleasant as the shady pathways of Iquitos.
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