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Bows, arrows, lances, pacunas or blow-pipes, were hung to the posts or rafters, an axe and a knife in some cases: bowls made from calabashes, earthen jars to hold chica, water and young turtles; a few blocks of wood for seats, a few baskets, a ladder to reach to the roof, a wooden trough in which masata is made, and a rude sort of loom, complete the furniture; from which list must not be omitted the lady's dressing box which contains her paints and brushes, as well as her trinkets.
The Bay of Conception is spacious and safe, extending above ten miles from north to south, and nearly as much from east to west. Its mouth is protected by a beautiful and fertile island, called Quiriquina, forming two mouths or entrances to the bay; that on the north-east called the bocca grande being two miles wide, and that on the south-west, or bocca chica, little more than a mile.
On the evening of the 2nd of the following month we sailed again, but having been baffled by calms and light winds, it was the 4th before we anchored off the St Domingo gate at Carthagena, and next morning we dropped down to Boca Chica, and saw our charge, a fine dashing schooner of 150 tons, safe into the harbour.
"I have no more force," sighed La Chica, suddenly, and sank down at the foot of the wall, putting the candlesticks on the floor. "You have been very good to him," I said; "only he need not have demanded this from you. Of course, I understood perfectly.... I hope you understand, too, that I "
This was washed down with `chica, and afterwards the padre and I indulged in a cigarette and a chat. "He was a genuine specimen of the South-American missionary priest; rather more scrupulous about getting his dues than about the moral welfare of his flock; fat, somewhat greasy, fond of a good dinner, a glass of `Yea' brandy, and a cigarette.
The colours used by the Maypures are the oxides of iron and manganese, and particularly the yellow and red ochres that are found in the hollows of sandstone. Sometimes the fecula of the Bignonia chica is employed, after the pottery has been exposed to a feeble fire. This painting is covered with a varnish of algarobo, which is the transparent resin of the Hymenaea courbaril.
Then, to save time, Dick determined to risk the passage of the Boca Chica, the usual harbour entrance, instead of taking the longer route out to sea behind the island of Baru, relying upon the indifferent lookout of the sentinels as reported by Marshall to enable the boat to pass undetected.
Thus as we say, in temperate climates, of a poor man, "he has not enough to clothe himself," you hear the Indians of the Orinoco say, "that man is so poor, that he has not enough to paint half his body." The little trade in chica is carried on chiefly with the tribes of the Lower Orinoco, whose country does not produce the plant which furnishes this much-valued substance.
To form a just idea of the extravagance of the decoration of these naked Indians, I must observe, that a man of large stature gains with difficulty enough by the labour of a fortnight, to procure in exchange the chica necessary to paint himself red.
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