110 THE NOHTUERN MOUNTAINS. 



with fruit. A tall and stately dame was there ; her only 

 garment a lung cotton-print gow^n, which covered her tall 

 Hn-ure from throat to ankle and wrist, showing brown 

 feet and liands which had once been delicate, and a brown 

 face, half Spanish, half Indian, modest and serious enough. 

 We pointed to a tall orange-tree overhead, laden with fruit 

 of every hue from briglit green to gold. She, on being 

 appealed to in Spanish, answered with a courteous smile, and 

 then a piercing scream of " Candelaria, come hither, and 

 izet oranoes for the Governor and other seiiors ! " Can- 

 delaria, avIio might have been eighteen or twenty, came 

 sliding down under the Banana -leaves, all modest smiles, and 

 blushes through her whitey-brown skin. But having no more 

 clothes on than her mother, she naturally hesitated at climb- 

 ing the tree ; and after ineffectual attem])ts to knock down 

 oranges with a bamboo, screamed in her turn for some Jose 

 or Juan. Jose or Juan made his appearance, in a ragged 

 shirt. A lanky lad, about seventeen years old, he was evi- 

 dently the oaf or hobbedehoy of the family, just as he would 

 have been on this side of the sea ; was ti-eated as such ; and 

 was accustomed to be so treated. In a tone of angry con- 

 tempt (the poor boy had done and said nothing) the two 

 women hounded him up the tree. He obeyed in meek resig- 

 nation, and in a couple of minutes we had more oranges than 

 we could eat. And such oranges : golden-green, but rather 



