"_The slaves appeared contented and happy, as slaves generally do. Every evening at sunset they came to bid good-night to Senhor Pedro and ourselves, a similar salutation taking place when they first met us in the morning. As a rule, the master would be seated in a comfortable easy-chair on the verandah, and each passed with a salutation suited to his age or station. The Indians would be generally content with `Boa noite' (good-night), the younger ones and most of the women and children, both Indians and slaves, would hold out their hand, saying: `Sua bencao' (your blessing), to which he would reply, `Deos te bencos' (God bless you) making at the same time the sign of the cross. Others-- and these were mostly the old negroes--would gravely repeat: `Louvado seja of nome do Senhor Jesu Christo' (Blessed be the name of the Lord Jesus Christ), to which he would reply with equal gravity: `Para sempre' (for ever). Children of all classes here (they went on) never meet their parents in the morning or leave them at night without in the same manner asking their blessing, and they do the same invariably of every stranger who enters the house. In fact, it is there the common salutation of children and inferiors, and has a very pleasing effect_." But all the time they lingered here, however, it was easy to see that the four Jesuits ached to be off to the sacred lake. Even when they described these idyllic scenes they harked off to this one all-absorbing subject, and recounted their conviction what fine guides these same slaves would make, and, later, told openly how they hastened to bargain with the Senhor Pedro Barra for the services of some of them to row them in a canoe up the river that led to the foot of the lake itself. Even the sight of this muddy and pestilential stream stirred in them emotions of admiration and awe. They might have been near the Amazon itself, have gazed on the stream of this mighty and far-famed river, and have let their imaginations wander to its sources in the distant Andes, to the Peruvian Incas of old, to the silver mountains of Potosi, and the gold-seeking Spaniards and wild Indians who once inhabited the country about its thousand sources rather than the sluggish stream of Tangikano. "Yet this is all proof of what fabulous wealth they were sure the lake contained," argued Casteno. "Let's bear with the laboured way they recount their adventures. After all, if what we have heard here in England is true there were riches enough ahead of them to justify all their impatience and enthusiasm."