This interesting place is lit with smoky old lamps and flaring torches, and the fitful light shows weird pictures to our unaccustomed eyes. Each booth is in charge of one or more women, and here and there is a man resplendent in overshadowing sombrero, with heavy silver braid wound about the crown. The women have the scantiest of clothing, arms and neck bare, dark eyes glittering, and dusky unkempt hair. The atmosphere is stifling, but we must endure it long enough to get some of the wares. The women chatter volubly, and even leave their booths to come and take us by the dress and urge us to some dingy stall. Vegetables and fruit are piled about in profusion, but we make our way to the pottery tables. I am afraid to admire the curious designs and archaic workmanship, for everything I notice approvingly the Peruvian straightway buys, and we soon have a basket full. "Ah! Figurines you must haf!" he exclaims as we approach a booth populous with little clay figures, tiny men and women in native dress, engaged in native avocations. These evidence no small cleverness in the modeller, and the Baron insists on taking a dozen. Far on the other side of the market some Indian women crouch in a semi-circle over an open air fire. "What are they doing?" asks Mrs. Steele. "Dthey make tortillas," says the Baron. "Oh, yes, I've heard about these meal cakes," says my friend, stopping to look at the queer group. One old woman jumps up and offers her something smoking in a pan. Mrs. Steele, bent upon discovery, bravely tears off a bit and tastes it, throwing the woman a coin. "Give me some," I say. "No," interposes the Baron, with a fatherly decision; "you vill haf supper soon, and I haf order tortillas. Mine vill be better. Vait leedle." Really, the Baron has quite taken me in hand, I think, half amused. But he is a very necessary quantity in this pilgrimage ashore, and I walk on obediently by his side, meditating how queer that one who appeared so masterful and imperious at times could be at others so weak and almost childish. It shed a new light on his character to see him ashore. Here he knows the people and their tongue, all our wants must pass through his interpretation, and he is master of the situation. He seems, moreover, to fall naturally and simply into the new office, and treats me quite as if I were a child. I want to stop and get some plantains as we pass a fruit stall. "No," says the Baron, "you must not eat dthem; dthey air--_unreif_." "Ah, but really," I say, "I _must_ taste a plaintain; suppose you had never seen one of that kind before." "I vill not buy dthem; I vill not see you ill," he says. "Very well, I'll buy one for myself." I drop his arm and run to the booth, and, laying my finger on the greenest plantain I can find, I say: "_Quantos?_"