In Search of an Unknown Race — page 162: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

150 VAN. the proper luggage was taken ashore and conveyed ta the house of Father Felix, who himself accompanied his guests up through a long shady walk to what he was pleased to call ‘‘his little place.” It was a rambling, one story building covering a considerable extent of ground, with a wide veranda on either side. The wattled uprights were smoothly plastered inside and out with a clayey cement, which after hardening was thoroughly whitewashed, while the watertight roof was plaited palm thatch. Hammocks hung in the verandas, the windows were destitute of glass, mosquito bars in every room, and the kitchen by itself in a covered shed at the rear, where half a dozen colored servants of both sexes were chat- tering and singing. That Ninada was the daughter of an American gentle- man in the far interior on her way to the United States for the purpose of educational advantages, Van, who for the time constituted himself spokesman of the party, deemed enough to explain without going into unneces- sary detail. His own presence and that of Flores he accounted for satisfactorily, and Father Felix was too much delighted at this break in his monotonous life to be unduly inquisitive. He himself had been sent to Atlaxa from the Catholic mission at Para nearly twenty years before and had never left the settlement even for a day since. ‘*T hope ’ve managed to do some little good among ‘em,’ he said in the course of conversation, ‘‘ but it’s a hard soil for seed sowing. There’s half Spanish Injuns within half a mile of “\e mission chapel, that would think no more of taking a human life for pay, than of CEOMMIELOOO KS.