The two travellers entered.
The hut presented as peculiar an appearance on the inside as it did on the outside. The rough pieces of Palmeto bark that boarded it, was hung with drapery of spider’s webs, that either floated black with time and dust, or was still spread in the process of extension, under the industry of the master insect himself. From crooked nails, that were driven into this primitive wall, a number of bottles, of peculiar fashions and makes, hung suspended by cord that had long lost its colour under the many dyes which it may have received from the black, yellow, green, brown, and bluish liquors which those bottles seemed to contain.
In one corner stood a rough bed, that seemed constructed of four branches of a Guava-bush; and around, a number of nasty, greasy, barrels were ranged, and had their heads carefully covered over by pieces of plastered old canvass.
In one of the deep angles of the hut there burnt a lamp, constructed of a hollow gourd, in which some cotton and some oil were adjusted, and was made to throw around a dim light, whose faint radii did not extend farther than a foot or two beyond its centre.
At the side of this lamp was huddled up a being which at first view, might appear to be one from whom life had long departed, and whom the veneration of friends or kindred persisted in still retaining among them. She was a little black woman of diminutive size, with an old greasy dress, that lay slack and loose about her. Her knees were drawn up to her jaws, which protruded largely and hideously. Her skin was shrivelled and dry, and seemed to flap as she moved her toothless jaws. A Madras handkerchief was tied carelessly round her head, and from a corner, or a hole here and there, her short gray and matted hair peeped out.
“Good night to you, Mother Celeste,” said the guide, as she drew a three-legged stool for the lady, and sat, herself, on the ground.
“Good night to you, my children, good night,” said Mother Celeste.
“I have brought this friend of mine,” said the guide, “to see you on a matter of great importance.”
“To see me? to see me, my child,” mumbled Mother Celeste: “what can I do for her, poor old woman as I am, except give her my blessing?”
“She wants some information about a person she is seeking,” said the guide.