As the galatea continued her course, this puzzling phenomenon ceased to be a conjecture; Tipperary Tom saw that he was no longer steering down a river between two boundary banks, but on a broad expanse of water, stretching as far as eye could reach, with no other boundary than that afforded by a _flooded forest_. There was nothing in all this to excite alarm,--at least in the mind of Tipperary Tom. The Mundurucú, had he been awake, might have shown some uneasiness at the situation. But the Indian was asleep,--perhaps dreaming of some Múra enemy,--whose head he would have been happy to embalm. Tom simply supposed himself to be in some part of the Solimoës, flooded beyond its banks, as he had seen it in more places than one. With this confidence, he stuck faithfully to his steering oar, and allowed the galatea to glide on. It was only when the reach of water--upon which the craft was drifting--began to narrow, or rather after it had narrowed to a surprising degree, that the steersman began to suspect himself of having taken the wrong course. His suspicions became stronger, at length terminating in a conviction that such was the truth, when the galatea arrived at a part where less than a cable's length lay between her beam-ends and the bushes that stood out of the water on both sides of her. Too surely had he strayed from the "mane sthrame." The craft that carried him could no longer be in the channel of the mighty Solimoës! The steersman was alarmed, and this very alarm hindered him from following the only prudent course he could have taken under the circumstances. He should have aroused his fellow-voyagers, and proclaimed the error into which he had fallen. He did not do so. A sense of shame at having neglected his duty, or rather at having performed it in an indifferent manner,--a species of regret not uncommon among his countrymen,--hindered him from disclosing the truth, and taking steps to avert any evil consequences that might spring from it. He knew nothing of the great river on which they were voyaging. There _might_ be such a strait as that through which the galatea was gliding. The channel might widen below; and, after all, he might have steered in the proper direction. With such conjectures, strengthened by such hopes, he permitted the vessel to float on. The channel _did_ widen again; and the galatea once more rode upon open water. The steersman was restored to confidence and contentment. Only for a short while did this state of mind continue. Again the clear water became contracted, this time to a very strip, while on either side extended reaches and estuaries, bordered by half-submerged bushes,--some of them opening apparently to the sky horizon, wider and freer from obstruction than that upon which the galatea was holding her course.