444 



QUIAPO A ' llANCHO.' 



June 



hair of horses, so roughly kept as these, is proof against ordi- 

 nary spurs, used with humanity. 



Going very much by chance, often losing our way, and 

 often taking a cast round to look for the most frequented track, 

 we at last arrived at Quiapo, a hamlet consisting of five huts 

 only, just in sight of one another on neighbouring hills. To 

 which of them the name belongs, I know not, as ' Todo es 

 Quiapo,' was all the answer I could get from my guide. 



Kiding up to the nearest hut, we tempted a young man 

 who occupied it, to sally forth in the rain in search of fresh 

 horses. This exertion was caused by the sure stimulant — 

 money. We might have talked of the wreck, and the Indians, 

 until that day month, without exciting our acquaintance to 

 move ; but the touch of dollars at once overcame the apathy 

 with which he listened to our first request for food and horses. 

 His wife told us to kill a fowl, if we could, for there was nothing 

 else to be had ; so forth we sallied, and as each understood 

 that the permission applied to himself, great was the confu- 

 sion among the poultry. To the dismay of our hostess, we 

 soon reappeared, each with a fowl ; but a certain silver talisman 

 quickly hushed her scolding, and set her cooking. Meanwhile 

 the rancho was ornamented with our wet clothes hanging 

 about it to be dried ; but rain came through the roof in so many 

 places that our trouble was useless. Dripping wet, having been 

 soaked since the morning, and of course cold, we could not 

 go near the fire, "because of the smoke ; so with a long pole we 

 poked a hole through the thatch, which let the smoke out, and 

 then closing round the fire, we surprised the good woman by 

 our attack upon her half-roasted fowls. 



All these huts are much alike. Under one thatched roof, 

 there is a place where all the family (including the dogs, 

 cats, and pigs) eat, while sitting or lying round the fire, which 

 is on the ground in the middle ; and there is a kind of ' dais,^* 

 where the same party afterwards seek that sound sleep from 

 which none of the insect tribe appear to awake them, however 

 * Raised half a foot above the ground. 



