“What is it all about, Sam?” he enquired, in a low voice.
“The Sulus and the San Blas speak the same language,” I replied.
“Anything wrong?”
“No; our chances are better than ever, I guess.”
Fifty pair of eyes were staring at us curiously; so we decided not to converse further at present. We stared in turn at the natives, who seemed not to object in the least.
Without question the San Blas were the best looking Indians I have ever seen. They resembled somewhat the best of the North American tribes, but among them was a larger proportion of intelligence and shrewdness. Their faces were frank and honest, their eyes large and expressive, and they moved in a self-possessed and staid manner that indicated confidence in their own powers and contempt for all enemies.
Their costumes were exceedingly interesting. Men and women alike wore simple robes of finely woven wool that were shaped somewhat like Greek tunics. The arms of the men were bare; the women had short flowing sleeves; and this was the only perceptible difference in the garb of the two sexes, except that most of the men wore sandals of bark, while the women and children were bare-footed.
The tunic was their sole garment, and reached only to the knees, being belted at the waist. The women, I afterward learned, wove the cloth in their houses, as one of their daily occupations, and the body of the tunic was always white, with colored stripes worked in at the neck and around the bottom.
These colors, which must have been vegetable dyes, were very brilliant in hue, including purple, orange, red, blue and yellow. Black was never used at all, and green was the color reserved for the nobles and the king. I noticed that the chief, Ogo, had a narrow band of green on his robe, which explained his proudly proclaiming himself a “green” or royal chief. The bands of green we found varied in width according to the prominence of their wearers.
One can easily imagine that the appearance of an automobile in this country, isolated as it was from all modern civilization, would be likely to inspire the natives with awe and wonder, if not with actual terror. Yet these queer people seemed merely curious, and tried to repress even their curiosity as much as possible. They knew nothing at all of mechanics, existing in the same simple fashion that their ancestors had done centuries before, plowing their land with sharpened sticks and using arrows and spears as their only weapons except for the long bronze knives that were so roughly fashioned as to be well-nigh ridiculous. The only way I can explain the stolid demeanor of these Indians is through their characteristic fearlessness and repression, which enabled them to accept any wonderful thing without displaying emotion.