Chap. IV. 
BLOW-PIPE. 
235 
potato, by means of a clay still, which had been manu- 
factured by herself. The liquor had a reddish tint, but 
not a very agreeable flavour. A cup of it warm from 
the still, however, was welcome after our long journey. 
Cardozo liked it, emptied his cup, and replenished it in 
a very short time. The old lady was very talkative, 
and almost fussy in her desire to please her visitors. 
We sat in tucum hammocks, suspended between the 
upright posts of the shed. The young woman with the 
blue mouth — who, although married, was as shy as any 
young maiden of her race — soon became employed in 
scalding and plucking fowls for the dinner, near the fire 
on the ground at the other end of the dwelling. The 
son-in-law, Pedro-uassu, and Cardozo now began a long 
conversation on the subject of their deceased wife^ 
daughter, and comadre.^ It appeared she had died of 
consu mption — tisica," as they called it, a word adopted 
by the Indians from the Portuguese. The widower 
repeated over and over again, in nearly the same words, 
his account of her illness, Pedro chiming in like a chorus, 
and Cardozo moralising and condoling. I thought the 
cauim (grog) had a good deal to do with the flow of 
talk and warmth of feeling of all three : the widower 
drank and wailed until he became maundering, and 
finally fell asleep. 
I left them talking, and went a long ramble into the 
forest, Pedro sending his grandson, a smiling well- 
behaved lad of about fourteen years of age, to show me 
the paths, my companion taking with him his Zaraba- 
* Co-motlier ; tlie term expressing the relationship of a mother to 
the godfather of her child. 
