five o’clock in the evening
The jangada , again started on the river , began to drift off diagonally . Araujo , cleverly profiting by the bendings of the current , which were due to the projections of the banks , and assisted by the long poles of his crew , succeeded in working the immense raft in the desired direction . In two hours the jangada was on the other side of the Amazon , a little above the mouth of the Rio Negro , and fairly in the current which was to take it to the lower bank of the vast bay which opened on the left side of the stream . At five o'clock in the evening it was strongly moored alongside this bank , not in the port of Manaos itself , which it could not enter without stemming a rather powerful current , but a short mile below it . The raft was then in the black waters of the Rio Negro , near rather a high bluff covered with cecropias with buds of reddish-brown , and palisaded with stiff-stalked reeds called _ `` froxas , '' _ of which the Indians make some of their weapons . A few citizens were strolling about the bank . A feeling of curiosity had doubtless attracted them to the anchorage of the raft .