SAN FRANCISCO DE MONTE. 265 



allowed in the church ; and the dancers, instead of painted bodies, and 

 heads crowned with feathers, and bound with the fillet, — still thought 

 holy, — are now clothed completely in women's dresses, as fine as they 

 can procure : and as the priests have much abridged the period of 

 the solemnity, they are fain to finish their dance in the area before 

 the church, where they are attended with as much deference as in the 

 temple itself. After having performed this duty, the dancers, and as 

 many as choose to accompany them, repair to the Cacique's house, 

 where they are treated with all the food he can command, and drink 

 till his stock of chicha is exhausted. I considered myself very fortunate 

 in having met with these dancers, and pleased myself with the idea 

 that they were the descendants of the Promaucians, who had resisted 

 the Incas in their endeavours to subdue the country, and who, after 

 bravely disputing its possession with the Spaniards, being once 

 induced to make a league with them never deserted them. 



I was lucky too in the person to whom I applied for information. 

 He is a deformed, but sprightly-looking man, who acts the double 

 part of schoolmaster and gracioso of the village. While we sat at 

 dinner to-day he entered to pay his compliments, and began a long 

 extempore compliment to each of us in verse, in a manner at least 

 as good as that of the common i?nprovisatori of Italy. For this I 

 paid him with a cup of wine ; when he began to recite a collection 

 of legendary and other verses, till, heated I presume by the glasses 

 handed to him by our young men, his tales began to stray so far 

 from decorum that we silenced the old gentleman, and sent him to 

 get a good dinner with the peons. 



Mr. de Roos and I had a great wish to have gone to the Cacique 

 of Chenigue, to see even at a distance the triennial feast ; but we 

 ,found it was too far to walk, and we could not think of taking out 

 the horses, who had to travel onward in the morning to Santiago ; 

 we therefore were forced to content ourselves with a visit to the 

 Cacique of Yupeo, whose village joins San Fancisco de Monte. We 

 found that His Majesty — must I call him ? — was absent, probably at 

 the feast at Chenigue. His wife received us very kindly : she is a 



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