armed when the reeds parted with a rattling noise, and three nude Indians, sepia-colored and crowned with tufts of hair like horses’ tails, leaped out like jacks-in-the-box.  At sight of the party standing to receive them they redoubled their clamor, then, flourishing their arms and legs and turning continually round, they gradually revolved into the presence of the explorers.  They selected as chiefs and sachems of the party such as bore weapons, being the colonel, Marcoy and the two interpreters.  These they clasped in a warm, fulsome embrace:  they were smeared from head to foot with rocoa (crude arnotta), and their passage through the river having dissolved this pigment, they printed themselves off, in this act of amity, upon the persons and clothing of their hosts.  While the white men, with a very bad grace, were cleaning off these tokens of natural affection, the new-comers went on to present their civilities all around.  Two of the porters they recognized at once, with their eagle eyesight, from having relieved them of their shirts while the latter were working out some penalty at the governor’s farm of Sausipata, and proceeded to claim a warm acquaintance on that basis; but the bearers, with equally lively memories of the affront, responded simply with a frown and the epithet of Sua-sua—­double thief.

Pepe Garcia undertook a colloquy, and Aragon, not to be behindhand, flashed a few words across the conversation, right and left as it were, his expressions appearing to be in a different tongue from those used by the chief interpreter, and both utterly without perceptible resemblance to the rolling consonants and gutturals of the savages.  Marcoy imbibed a strong impression that the only terms understood in common were the words of Spanish with which the palaver was thickly interlarded.  This was the first time the interpreters were put on their mettle in a strictly professional sense, and the test was not altogether triumphant.  However, by a careful raising of the voice in all difficult passages, and a wild, expressive pantomime, an understanding was arrived at.

The visitors belonged to the tribe of Siriniris, inhabiting the space comprised between the valleys of Ocongate and Ollachea, and extending eastwardly as far as the twelfth degree.  They lived at peace with their neighbors, the Huat-chipayris and the Pukiris.  For several days the reports of the Christian guns (tasa-tasa) had advertised them of the presence of white men in the valley, and, curious to judge of their numbers, they had approached.  They had formed a cunning escort to the party, always faithful but never seen, since the encampment at Maniri:  every camping-ground since that particular bivouac they faithfully described.  They were, of course, in particular and direful need of sirutas and bambas (knives and hatchets), but their fears of the tasa-tasa, or guns, was still stronger than their desires, and their courage had not, until they saw the strangers domiciled as guests in their own habitations, attained the firmness and consistency necessary for a personal approach.  The three dancing ambassadors were ministers plenipotentiary on the part of their tribe, located in a bamboo metropolis five miles off.