Chap. IV. BLOW-PIPE. 235 



potato, by means of a clay still, which had been manu- 

 factured by herself. The liquor had a reddish tint, but 

 not a very agreeable flavour. A cup of it warm from 

 the still, however, was welcome after our long journey. 

 Cardozo liked it, emptied his cup, and replenished it in 

 a very short time. The old lady was very talkative, 

 and almost fussy in her desire to please her visitors. 

 We sat in tucum hammocks, suspended between the 

 upright posts of the shed. The young woman with the 

 blue mouth — who, although married, was as shy as any 

 young maiden of her race — soon became employed in 

 scalding and plucking fowls for the dinner, near the fire 

 on the ground at the other end of the dwelling. The 

 son-in-law, Pedro-uassu, and Cardozo now began a long 

 conversation on the subject of their deceased wife, 

 daughter, and comadre* It appeared she had died of 

 consumption — " tisica," as they called it, a word adopted 

 by the Indians from the Portuguese. The widower 

 repeated over and over again, in nearly the same words, 

 his account of her illness, Pedro chiming in like a chorus, 

 and Cardozo moralising and condoling. I thought the 

 cauim (grog) had a good deal to do with the flow of 

 talk and warmth of feeling of all three : the widower 

 drank and wailed until he became maundering, and 

 finally fell asleep. 



I left them talking, and went a long ramble into the 

 forest, Pedro sending his grandson, a smiling well- 

 behaved lad of about fourteen years of age, to show me 

 the paths, my companion taking with him his Zaraba- 



* Co-mother ; the term expressing the relationship of a mother to 

 the godfather of her child. 



