INDIAN CARRIERS. 



269 



upon my mind than this ; but with the untamed Indi- 

 ans around, Mr. Catherwood was too much excited and 

 too nervous to attempt to make a sketch of it. 



At dark we returned to the cabildo, which was dec- 

 orated with evergreens for the fiesta, and at one end 

 was a table, with a figure of the Virgin fantastically 

 dressed, sitting under an arbour of pine-leaves. 



In the evening we visited the padre, the delegate of 

 Padre Solis, a gentlemanly young man from Ciudad 

 Real, who was growing as round, and bade fair to grow 

 as rich out of this village as Padre Solis himself. He 

 and the justitia were the only white men in the place. 

 We returned to the cabildo ; the Indians came in to 

 bid the justitia buenos noces, kissed the back of his 

 hand, and we were left to ourselves. 



Before daylight we were roused by an irruption of 

 Indian carriers with lighted torches, who, while we 

 were still in bed, began tying on the covers of our 

 trunks to carry them off. At this place the mechanic 

 arts were lower than in any other we had visited. 

 There was not a rope of any kind in the village ; the 

 fastenings of the trunks and the straps to go around the 

 forehead were all of bark strings ; and here it was cus- 

 tomary for those who intended to cross the mountains 

 to take hammacas or sillas ; the former being a cush- 

 ioned chair, with a long pole at each end, to be borne 

 by four Indians before and behind, the traveller sitting 

 with his face to the side, and, as the justitia told us, only 

 used by very heavy men and padres ; and the latter an 

 armchair, to be carried on the back of an Indian. We 

 had a repugnance to this mode of conveyance, consid- 

 ering, though unwilling to run any risk, that where an 

 Indian could climb with one of us on his back we could 

 climb alone, and set out without either silla or hammaca. 



