THE SAN BLAS PEOPLE 



one bore a baby on her hip. They wore gold 

 nose rings and brilliantly colored dresses, 

 these women, and they were strangely shy, 

 inordinately bashful. When one looked 

 squarely at them they disappeared, melted 

 away, only to reappear when one's glance had 

 traveled on. But that which challenged at- 

 tention was the boys. There were scores of 

 them splendid, straight-limbed, manly little 

 fellows. They were half demented with ex- 

 citement; nevertheless, they were decorous. 

 Every mother's son of them was stark naked. 

 We bent double to enter a door in the 

 nearest wall and followed Victor towards the 

 chief's house. Through a vast, gloomy in- 

 terior with low log beams, from which de- 

 pended parallel rows of hammocks, we made 

 our way, then out into a street so narrow that 

 we large-framed visitors had to walk in single 

 file, stooping to avoid the sharp ends of 

 bamboo rafters. The men and the boys 

 went with us. There was a great scuffling of 

 naked feet, but no other sound. From every 

 crevice between the upright poles which 

 formed the house walls the bright black eyes 

 of women peered. From behind closed doors, 

 usually a single plank hewn from a mahogany 



"5 



