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Other women go around with large wicker trays on their heads, selling chipa, the native bread, made from Indian corn, or mandioca root, the staple food of the country. Wheat is not grown in Paraguay, and any flour used is imported. These daughters of Eve often wear nothing more than a robe- de-chambre, and invariably smoke cigars six or eight inches long.

We still had a little chipa, which had by this time become as hard as stone, but which I jealously guarded to use only in case of the greatest emergency. At times we had been very hungry, but my order was that it should not be touched.

Loading the pack-horse with chipa, beads, looking-glasses, knives, etc., Old Stabbed Arm and I mounted our horses, and, each taking a spare one by the halter, drove the pack-saddle mare in front, leaving the tenderhearted Mrs. Sorrows weeping behind.

If the family is wealthy this will be served in a heavy silver cup and bombilla, or sucking tube, of the same metal. After this drink and a bite of chipa, a strangely shaped, thin-necked bottle, made of sun-baked clay, is brought, and from it water is poured on the hands. The towels are spotlessly white and of the finest texture.

She pounded corn in a mortar with a hardwood pestle, and made me another baking of chipa, with which we further burdened the pack-horse, and away we started again, with affectionate farewells and tears, towards the unknown. Next day we were joined by a traveller who was escaping to the interior. He plainly declared himself as a murderer, and told us he had shot one of the doctors in Asuncion.

His host of the rancho is as gracious in manners and as affable as it is possible to be, and serves up for breakfast a soup of Indian corn, a chicken fricasee and some delicious bread of crusty chipa a frugal meal assuredly, and one entirely out of keeping with the richness of the service of silver plate which burdens the table, and which, worth fully two thousand francs, includes three large plates, an enormous dish and several massive mugs.