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Men, women and children in ragged finery, Pierrots with neck frills and floured faces, hideous masks of impossible beasts roughly besmeared in crude colours. There were gaily-coloured dominoes, blue, green, pink and purple, harlequins combining all the colours of the rainbow in one tight-fitting garment, and Columbines with short, tarlatan skirts, beneath which peeped bare feet and ankles.
One of the chief people in the place, if he was not the governor, wore a gaily-coloured robe of rich silk, with the back, sleeves, and breast, covered with armorial bearings. He wore a very short pair of trousers, with black socks and straw slippers. His hat, something like a reversed bowl, shone with lacquer and ornaments of gold.
Now they busied themselves and set their dragon-headed vessel in order. And when all was ready they spread their gaily-coloured sails, and sailed out into the unknown sea. Westward and ever westward they sailed towards the setting of the sun. For many days they sailed yet they saw no land: nought was about them but the restless, tossing waves.
We frequently saw the scarlet heads of the macaws peeping out of holes in the trees in which they make their nests; while flights of gaily-coloured parrots and green parrakeets were flying backwards and forwards across the river. Small fish, too, were in such vast shoals in the shallows that the bongo appeared in one place to cut through them.
As the barge neared the shore, a tall and dignified chief, his dress of the richest skins, and ornamented with gaily-coloured feathers, with a circle of plumes on his head, holding an unstrung bow of great strength in his hand, was seen standing on the beach to receive the new-comers.
Now and then would come the deep clang of the huge bell of the draught oxen, drawing their Old-World carts, often with solid discs of wood for wheels, while the women of the lower class sported their brilliantly embroidered Manila shawls, chattered, and fluttered their gaily-coloured fans just like the other señoritas.
In the midsummer twilight the brilliantly decorated barges were again floating on the historic river, the gaily-coloured lanterns lighting the sweep of the oars, and the sound of lute and viol floating merrily across the water.
Norman paid but little attention to what Mrs Leslie said, and had almost torn one of them open before his papa took them. "We must look at the one for Fanny first, as she is a young lady," observed Captain Vallery, feeling the parcels, and undoing one, he presented Fanny with a box which had a glass top, and inside of it was a white swan with three gaily-coloured fish.
The water was clear and bright, and the sun shone directly down upon the channel, which had now assumed the character of an igarape, the trees by it adorned with numberless creepers and parasitical plants, covered with gaily-coloured flowers, which hung in fantastic wreaths from the boughs. I felt that a swim would be very enjoyable.
There was nobody adventurous enough to imitate the audacities of a lady of fashion. Miss Emery, of Petersfield, was quite good enough for the landed gentry of this quiet region. She had the fashions direct from Paris in the gaily-coloured engravings of Le Follet, and what could anyone want more fashionable than Paris fashions?
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