of their
children, and

'I will spin their flax,
And weave their thread,
And pound their corn,
And bake their bread.'"

"How will you tell them that you will do this?" said he.

"I will do it," said Oello, "and that will be better than telling them."

"But do not you just wish," said he, "that you could speak five little
words of their language, to say to them that we come as friends, and not
as enemies?"

Oello laughed very heartily. "Enemies," said she, "terrible enemies, who
have two sticks for their weapons, two old bags for their stores, and
cotton clothes for their armor. I do not believe more than half the army
will turn out against us." So Oello pulled out the potatoes from the
ashes, and found they were baked; she took a little salt from her
haversack or scrip, and told her husband that dinner would be ready, if
he would only bring some water. He pretended to groan, but went, and
came in a few minutes with two gourds full, and they made a very merry
meal.

* * * * *

The same evening they came cautiously down on the beautiful meadow land
which surrounded the lake they had seen. It is one of the most beautiful
countries in the world. It was an hour before sunset,--the hour, I
suppose, when all countries are most beautiful. Oello and her husband
came joyfully down the hill, through a little track the llamas had made
toward the water, wondering at the growth of the wild grasses, and,
indeed, the freshness of all the green; when they were startled by
meeting a horde of the poor, naked, half-starved Indians, who were just
as much alarmed to meet with them.

I do not think that the most stupid of them could have supposed Oello an
enemy, nor her husband. For they stepped cheerfully down the path,
waving boughs of fresh cinchona as tokens of peace, and looking kindly
and pleasantly on the poor Indians, as I believe nobody had looked on
them before. There were fifty of the savages, but it was true that they
were as much afraid of the two young Northerners as if they had been an
army. They saw them coming down the hill, with the western sun behind
them, and one of the women cried out, "They are children of the sun,
they are children of the sun!" and Oello and her husband looked so as if
they had come from a better world that all the other savages believed
it.

But the two young people came down so kindly and quickly, that the
Indian women could not well ru