Page:Iracéma, the honey-lips (1886).djvu/15

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IRAÇÉMA.

CHAPTER I.

Wild green seas of my Native Land, where sings the Jandáia-bird[1] in the fronds of the Carnaúba-palm![2]

Green seas which sparkle like liquid emerald in the rays of the orient sun, as ye stretch along the snowy beaches shaded by the cocoa-tree!

Be still, ye green seas! and gently smooth the impetuous wave, that yon venturesome barque may softly glide over thy waters.

Where goes that hardy Jangada-raft,[3] which rapidly flies from the Ceará coast, with her broad sail spread to the fresh breeze of land?

Where goes it, like the white halcyon seeking his native rock in the ocean solitudes?

Three beings breathe upon that fragile plank, which scuds so swiftly out—far into the open sea.

A warrior youth, whose pale skin betokens that the blood of the Indians does not colour his veins; a

  1. ↑ Jandáia is a small yellow, red, and green talking parroquet.
  2. ↑ Carnaúba, a well-known Brazilian palm of large size, with many thorny branches all the way up the trunk, instead of being plain and smooth. Each branch-tip is like a fan-palm. When young, it has a large fruit, full of oil, which is given to pigs and cattle. When grown up, its fan-leaves, dried, thatch the houses, and make hats and mats; its thorny branches are used for stakes; it also has a delicious small black fruit, and from other parts they extract wax for making the Carnaúba candles.
  3. ↑ Jangada, a raft.

A

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