VALPARAISO. 141 
of the inferior workmen. However on advancing a little farther I 
found that I must look for no regular manufactory, no division of la- 
bour, no machinery, not even the potter’s wheel, none of the aids to 
industry which I had conceived almost. indispensable to a trade so 
artificial as that of making earthenware. At the door of one of the 
poorest huts, formed merely of branches and covered with long grass, 
having a hide for a door, sat a family of manufacturers. They were 
seated on sheep-skins spread under the shade of a little penthouse 
formed of green boughs, at their work. A mass of clay ready tem- 
pered * lay before them, and each person according to age and abi- 
lity was forming jars, plates, or dishes. The work-people were all 
women, and I believe that no man condescends to employ himself in 
this way, that is, in making the small ware: the large wine jars, &c. 
of Melipilla are made by men. As the shortest way of learning is to 
mix at once with those we wish to learn from, I seated myself on the 
sheep-skin and began to work too, imitating as I could a little girl who 
was making a simple saucer. The old woman who seemed the chief 
directress, looked at me very gravely, and then took my work and 
showed me how to begin it anew, and work its shape aright. All this, 
to be sure, I might have guessed at; but the secret I wanted to learn, 
was the art of polishing the clay, for it is not rendered shining by any 
of the glazing processes I have seen ; therefore I waited patiently and 
worked at my dish till it was ready. Then the old woman put her hand 
into a leathern pocket which she wore in front, and drew out a smooth 
shell, with which she first formed the edges and borders anew; and 
then rubbed it, first gently, and, as the clay hardened, with greater 
force, dipping the shell occasionally in water, all over the surface, 
until a perfect polish was produced, and the vessel was set to dry in 
the shade. 
Sometimes the earthenware so prepared is baked in large ovens 
constructed on purpose; butas often, the holes in the side of the hill, 
* The clay is very fine and smooth, and found about nine inches or a foot from the sur- 
face ;_it requires little tempering, and is free from extraneous matter ; the women knead 
it with their hands. 
