"What, then do you learn in the Belem colleges?" laughingly asked Minha.
"I begin to perceive that they teach us nothing," replied Manoel.
"What, sir!" replied Minha, with a pleasant seriousness, "you do not know, among other fables, that an enormous reptile called the 'minhocao,' sometimes visits the sss, and that the waters of the river rise or fall according as this serpent plunges in or quites them, so gigantic is he?"
"But have you ever seen t his phenomenal minhocao?"
"Alas, no!" replied Lina.
"What a pity!" Fragoso thought it proper to add.
"And the 'Mae d'Aqua,'" continued the girl--"that proud and redoubtable woman whose look fascinates and drages beneath the waters of the river the imprudent ones who gaze a her."
"Oh, as for the 'Mae d'Aqua,' she exists!" cried the naïve L
