A staircase, in a miserable state, cut in the cliff, allowed the visitors to arrive on the crest of the plateau.
Yaquita and her party were received by the commandant of the fort, a poor fellow who, however, knew the laws of hospitality, and offered them some breakfast in his cottage.

Here and there passed and repassed several soldiers on guard, while on the threshold of the barrack appeared a few children, with their mothers of Ticuna blood, affording very poor specimens of the mixed race.
In place of accepting the breakfast of the sergeant, Yaquita invited the commandant and his wife to come and have theirs on board the jangada.
The commandant did not wait for a second invitation, and an appointment was made for eleven o'clock.

In the meantime Yaquita, her daughter, and the young mulatto, accompanied by Manoel, went for a walk in the neighborhood, leaving Benito to settle with the commandant about the tolls--he being chief of the custom-house as well as of the military establishment.
That done, Benito, as was his wont, strolled off with his gun into the adjoining woods.

On this occasion Manoel had declined to accompany him.
Fragoso had left the jangada, but instead of mounting to the fort he had made for the village, crossing the ravine which led off from the right on the level of the bank.

He reckoned more on the native custom of Tabatinga than on that of the garrison.