The Tallies 



If there was much leaf and rubbish mixed with the fruit, 

 the woman tilted up her basket behind, and let a slender 

 stream of olives fall from above her forehead, while a man 

 with a flapping sack winnowed away the lighter matters. 



Over the heap stood guard the steward or capataz^ an 

 ancient man, with a grizzly stubble on his chin (for it was 

 Saturday), standing with his legs apart, broadly planted in 

 the dignity of his oflice. The straddling supporters of this 

 weight of importance were incased in what seemed in front 

 to be a pair of brown sheepskin breeches, but from behind 

 revealed themselves to be but a slit apron, fastened with 

 thongs round each leg. Both his hands were on his hips, 

 with each thumb hooked in the folds ofhxsfaja^ and in the 

 fingers of his right was a crooked whittle, with which ever 

 and anon, as the basketfuls arrived, he would nick the score 

 upon notch-sticks which hung in a curve of string between 

 two branches of an olive hard by. 



These sticks were regular tallies. Each basket had a couple 

 of loops, in which the gatherer's stick rested, and when the 

 basket was discharged, the bearer presented it to the 

 capataz. He, fitting it on to its brother on the line, nicked 

 them both with his eagle-beaked blade. 



The sun went down, and we returned to the hacienda 

 (farm). The marques said that the cura would probably 

 have arrived by the time we got home. He came from 

 Carmona every Saturday to say mass on the Sunday morn- 

 ing, being chaplain of the establishment. We found the 

 olive-mill still working, lighted by flaring wicks in iron 

 saucers of its own oil. At one of these we lighted our 

 cigars, and were talking to the millers, when there entered 

 a corpulent old figure, dressed in a rusty-brown jacket 

 and breeches, a Calanles hat, black leathern hotines (the 

 embroidered greave of the country), and a broad hXzckfaja: 



80 



