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Gay blossoms, neatly kept garden rows, red ollas hanging in the shade of cypress and acacia, the rose-bordered plaza on which fronted the house of the patron, the gigantic windmill purring lazily and turning now to the right, now to the left, to meet the varying breeze, the entire prospect was in its pastoral quietude a reflection of Señora Loring's sweet and placid nature.
The warriors are absent. They come down the ladders, descending from terrace to terrace. They go out upon the plain, and rekindle the fires. Some carry earthen vessels, ollas, upon their heads, and pass down to the river. They go in for water. These are nearly naked. We can see their brown bodies and uncovered breasts. They are slaves. See! the old men are climbing to the top of the temple.
They know it to be the war-trumpet of the pale-faces! For awhile their consternation hinders them from action. They stand looking on until we are near. Then they behold pale-faces, strange armour, and horses singularly caparisoned. It is the white enemy! They run from point to point, from street to street. Those who carry water dash down their ollas, and rush screaming to the houses.
Various meats, called "it-tag'," as carabao and pork, are "preserved" by salting down in large bejuco-bound gourds, called "fa'-lay," or in tightly covered ollas, called "tu-u'-nan." Meats are kept thus two or three years, though of course the odor is vile. The dog ranks last in the list of regular flesh foods of the Bontoc man. In the Benguet area it ranks second, pork receiving the first place.
They stirred chile and chocolate in earthen ollas. They cooked frijoles in flat pans; and amidst all these occupations they joked and laughed and chatted with the men. Several men officers, from their style of dress came out of the portale, and, after delivering orders to the guerilleros on guard, returned to the house. Packages of what appeared to be merchandise lay in one corner of the court.
A thousand times he had seen the sign, hammered into the blasted rocks the helix, that mystic symbol of the ancients, a circle, ever widening, never ending, and wondered at the fate of the vanished people who had prayed to the Sun for rain. The fragments of their sacrificial ollas lay strewn among the bowlders, but the worshippers were dead; and now a stranger prayed to his own God for rain.
Without appearing to do so she saw everything in the house, which was hardly more than an artistic camp, so far as the first floor was concerned. Navajo rugs were on the floor, Moqui plaques starred the walls, and Acoma ollas perched upon book-shelves of thick plank. The chairs were rude, rough, and bolted at the joints.
In addition to the quaint ladders, quainter steps, cut into flat or round trunks of cottonwood trees, are used. Stone steps connecting the two upper stories, are also built outside in the partition walls. The chimneys are constructed, in true pueblo fashion, of pottery water ollas, the bottoms of which have been broken out.
And the maidens are there, "drawing water from the well," carrying water in ollas on their heads, bronzed statues of perfect poise and perfect grace, daughters of the Desert, hard lovers, hard haters, veiled as all mysteries are veiled.
"What are you selling them?" I asked, trying to be as stern as possible. "Water we all washed in," he said, and we both had a good laugh. At noon the snakes were taken from the big jars and washed in other ollas of water. This is a matter of politeness. Since the snake brothers cannot wash themselves, it must be done for them.
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