And hence on this day the young men had gone out hunting in the woods, so as to leave Yaquita alone with her husband.
In the afternoon these two were in the large room of the house.

Joam Garral, who had just come in, was half-reclining on a couch of plaited bamboos, when Yaquita, a little anxious, came and seated herself beside him.
To tell Joam of the feelings which Manoel entertained toward his daughter was not what troubled her.

The happiness of Minha could not but be assured by the marriage, and Joam would be glad to welcome to his arms the new son whose sterling qualities he recognized and appreciated.
But to persuade her husband to leave the fazenda Yaquita felt to be a very serious matter.
In fact, since Joam Garral, then a young man, had arrived in the country, he had never left it for a day.

Though the sight of the Amazon, with its waters gently flowing to the east, invited him to follow its course; though Joam every year sent rafts of wood to Manaos, to Belem, and the seacoast of Para; though he had seen each year Benito leave after his holidays to return to his studies, yet the thought seemed never to have occurred to him to go with him.
The products of the farm, of the forest, and of the fields, the fazender sold on the spot.

He had no wish, either with thought or look, to go beyond the horizon which bounded his Eden.
From this it followed that for twenty-five years Joam Garral had never crossed the Brazilian frontier, his wife and daughter had never set foot on Brazilian soil.