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214 



PROVISIONS. 



fresh ; resolving to arrive at Piato, distant ten 

 leagues, in one day; this I accomplished, resting 

 only a short time at noon. I was very unfit for 

 so much exertion, but the necessity of the case 

 did not allow me any alternative, and I was de- 

 termined to ride until absolute exhaustion forced 

 me to give way. 



We overtook my people, and all of us rested 

 at the same place. Feliciano shot an antelope, 

 upon which we dined. It was seldom if ever 

 absolutely necessary to depend upon our guns 

 for subsistence, though the provision thus ob- 

 tained was by no means unacceptable, as it varied 

 our diet. We could generally either purchase a 

 considerable supply of dried meat, or as occa- 

 sionally occurred, it was afforded us gratuitously. 

 Sheep were sometimes to be bought, and at 

 others, fowls might be obtained on enquiring at 

 the cottages ; but although numbers of the lat- 

 ter were to be seen about the huts, and a high 

 price offered, still the owners frequently refused 

 to part with them. The women, naturally 

 enough, had the management of this department 

 of household arrangement, and after much bar- 

 gaining, the housewife would often at last de- 

 clare, that all of them were such favourites, that 

 she and her children could not resolve to have 

 any of them killed. This behaviour became so 

 frequent, that at last when either the guide or 

 myself rode up to a cottage to purchase a fowl, 



