The ball gowns had but one beauty—that of originality. There was always an unfortunate hiatus between bodices and skirts, which was partly concealed by the long straight black hair which hung down the backs of the women. The shoes were in a piteous condition, never the right size, very seldom mates and not infrequently both were for the same foot. But all the skirts had trains and all ears bore ear-rings. We were told that these women often danced all day and all night, until they became perfectly dazed, their feet moving mechanically in time to the music of the national dance—the _joropa_, which is a cross between a clog dance and a waltz. We saw dancing the women whose _curiara_ had so narrowly escaped a fatal collision with our sloop in the Guarapiche. The Captain had said they were leaving Maturin “to operate some speculation in Guanoco—perhaps even to find husbands.” And here among so many men, for the population of Guanoco was chiefly composed of men employed at the lake, surely there was hope, even for adventuresses so black and uncouth as these. Here also we met one of Guanoco’s most amusing characters, a big black Trinidad negro. He was full of the superiority of one who had seen the world; for he had once been to England as stateroom steward on one of the big steamers. He now dropped his h’s, called his wife “Lady Mackáy” and on Sundays wore a monocle. It was twilight as we walked home through the little settlement. At one of the huts two little naked babies were playing “rock-a-by” in the great curved sheaths which protect the blossom of the moriche, or eta palm. At another a child came out and sang a little Spanish song for us—all about her sins and the confession she must make to the priest, the refrain being “_Mi penetencia! mi penetencia!_” and she sang it with her small hands clasped and her head devoutly bowed. A few coins made the wee penitent superlatively happy. Her mother must have taught her the song, for in Guanoco there was no priest, no school, no doctor. The two young West Indians at headquarters (neither much more than twenty years old) officiated at all funerals, being Catholic or Protestant, in Spanish or English, as the case demanded. They prescribed for all diseases, from the prevalent fever to the woman who was suffering greatly but could give no more definite description of her trouble than that she had a “pain that walked.” [Illustration: FIG. 54. PRIESTLESS CHAPEL AT GUANOCO.] I could never understand the fever so common at Guanoco: for I never knew a place more free from mosquitoes and from insects of every description. We were continually in the sun and often in the rain, yet we both kept in perfect health.