a
little earthen ladle. The bread is a great novelty to me. It is made of
corn meal in sheets as thin and large as foolscap paper. In the corner
of the house is a little oven, the top of which is a great flat stone,
and the good housewife bakes her bread in this manner: The corn meal is
mixed to the consistency of a rather thick gruel, and the woman dips her
hand into the mixture and plasters the hot stone with a thin coating of
the meal paste. In a minute or two it forms into a thin paper-like cake,
and she takes it up by the edge, folds it once, and places it on a
basket tray; then another and another sheet of paper-bread is made in
like manner and piled on the tray. I notice that the paste stands in a
number of different bowls and that she takes from, one bowl and then
another in order, and I soon see the effect of this. The corn before
being ground is assorted by colors, white, yellow, red, blue, and black,
and the sheets of bread, when made, are of the same variety of colors,
white, yellow, red, blue, and black. This bread, held on very beautiful
trays, is itself a work of art. They call it _piki._ After we have
partaken of goat stew and bread a course of dumplings, melons, and
peaches is served, and this finishes the feast. What seem to be
dumplings are composed of a kind of hash of bread and meat, tied up in
little balls with cornhusks and served boiling hot. They are eaten with
much gusto by the party and highly praised. Some days after we learned
how they are made; they are prepared of goat's flesh, bread, and
turnips, and kneaded by mastication. As we prefer to masticate our own
food, this dainty dish is never again a favorite.

In the evening the people celebrate our advent by a dance, such it
seemed to us, but probably it was one of their regular ceremonies.

After dark a pretty little fire is built in the chimney corner and I
spend the evening in rehearsing to a group of the leading men the story
of my travels in the canyon country. Of our journey down the canyon in
boats they have already heard, and they listen with great interest to
what I say. My talk with them is in the Mexican patois, which several of
them understand, and all that I say is interpreted.

The next morning we are up at daybreak. Soon we hear loud shouts coming
from the top of the house. The _cacique_ is calling his people. Then all
the people, men, women, and children, come out on the tops of their
houses. Just before sunrise they s