Filippe had tears in his eyes when he received his pay and present. He embraced me and thanked me a million times for having made him a rich man.
"After all," said he, "we have suffered a great deal, but now I shall be happy for ever. I shall marry the girl who is waiting for me at home."
"If ever I come out on another journey, Filippe, will you go with me again?" I asked him.
Filippe pondered for a moment. "Yes," he said with determination. "I have proved to you that I am afraid of nothing. You only have to order me, and I will go with you. Even if we are to suffer again as we have suffered on this journey!"
Filippe was a good fellow.
The other man when paid off received his money and his reward silently. He went out into the street, and returned four hours later without one single penny. He had purchased an expensive suit of clothes, a number of silk neckties, a gold chain, watch, etc.
The next morning there was a steamer sailing for Rio de Janeiro, so I packed off the jubilant Filippe, paying a second-class passage for him on the steamer and a first-class on the railway, as I had done for the other men, with wages up to the day of his arrival in Araguary, his native town.
Thus I saw the last of that plucky man—the only one who had remained of the six who had originally started with me.
On December 16th I left Manaos for good on my way to Peru, escorted to the good Booth Line steamer Atahualpa by the Commandante of the Federal troops, the representatives of the Associação Commercial, Dr. Maso, and some of my English and American friends.
It was with the greatest delight that I saw Manaos vanish away from sight as we descended the Rio Negro. Rounding the point at its mouth, steaming towards the west, we entered the Solemões River. This river is navigable by fairly good-sized boats as far as Iquitos, in the province of Loreto in Peru.