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They were of different sizes; some capable of containing half a dozen, while others were meant to carry only a single person. "In a few minutes the ubas were freighted with their living cargoes, consisting not only of the hunters, but of most of the women and boys of the malocca, with a score or two of dogs. "These dogs were curious creatures to look at.
We returned to the malocca with a game-bag as various as it was full, and a grand dance of the Juruna women wound up the amusements of the day." The long looked for day at length arrived when the game were to be met with, and I had myself the "distinguished honour" of being the first not only to see the great buffalo, but to throw a couple of them "in their tracks."
The grand council room, called malocca, he also enters with like result; no one is inside it not a soul to be seen anywhere, either in the streets of the village or on the plain stretching around! He is alarmed as much as surprised; indeed more, since he has been anticipating something amiss.
For soon as the latter had started off on his reckless chase braving public opinion, and defying the opposition of the elders a revolution had arisen in the tribe; while a council meeting, hastily called in the malocca, had, with almost unanimous vote, deposed him from the chieftainship, and chosen Kaolin cacique in his stead. Needless to say, that to all this Nacena was a consenting party.
"There was a part of the river, some two or three miles above the malocca, where the channel was wider than elsewhere several miles in breadth at this place. Here it was studded with islands, known to be a favourite resort of the tapirs. This was to be the scene of our hunt.
A few of the men may also be observed moving about, or standing in groups on the open ground adjoining the malocca; but at this hour most of them are on horseback out upon the adjacent plain, there galloping to and fro, gathering their flocks and herds, and driving them towards the corrals; these flocks and herds composed of horned cattle, sheep, and goats the Tovas Indians being somewhat of a pastoral people.
On reaching the tolderia, however, he does not go direct to his own dwelling, which is the largest of those adjacent to the malocca. Nor yet enters he among the toldos; but, instead, makes a wide circuit around them, taking care not to awake those sleeping within.
True, some dwellings, grander and more pretentious than the common, are grouped around an open space; in the centre of which is one much larger than any of the others, its dimensions equalling a dozen of them. This is not a dwelling, however, but the Malocca, or House of Parliament.
For the same tale which Aguara had told to his captive on the way, he has repeated, with some variations, to the elders of the tribe assembled in council within the malocca. So far not much of a fiction; only that part accounting for the death of the young brave who fell to Halberger's bullet a stray shot, while the latter was defending himself against Valdez.
Both are at about a like distance from the abandoned town, heading straight for it; and while Kaolin and the gaucho continue watching them they ride in among the toldos from opposite sides, meeting face to face on the open space by the malocca. At sight of one another the two sets come to a sudden halt; and, for a second or two, seem engaged in a mutual and suspicious reconnaissance.
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