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over the fire the Mingáo^[1] to nourish her son. When the sun gilded the mountain-crests she set out towards the forest, carrying on her bosom the sleeping child.

In the thickness of the wood was found the lair of the absent Irára; the pups, still small, were whining and rolling over one another. The beautiful Tabajára crept softly up to it. She made for her child a cradle of a soft bough of the Maracujá, and sat down near it.

She took one by one into her lap all the pups of the Irára, and abandoned to their famished mouths her bosom, beautiful as the red Pitanga, which she had anointed with the honey of the bee. The hungry young ones fastened upon it, and greedily drained her breasts.

Iraçéma felt pain hitherto unknown to her; they seemed to exhaust her life. At last, however, her bosom began to swell, and the milk, still tinged with the life-fluid of which it is formed, gushed forth.

The happy mother cast away the little Iráras, and, full of joy, appeased the hunger of the babe. He is now doubly Moacyr, the son of pain, once born of Iracema, and secondly nourished by her.

The daughter of Araken at last began to feel that her veins were drying up, and withal her life, embittered by sorrow, rejected the nourishment which might have restored her strength. Tears and sighs had alike banished the smile and the appetite from her beautiful mouth.