Page:Iracéma, the honey-lips (1886).djvu/18
the refreshing dawn-dew. Whilst reposing she refits her arrows with the plumes of the Gará,[1] whilst she joins in the joyous song of the forest Sabiá,[2] perched in the nearest bough.
A beautiful Ará,[3] her companion and friend, plays near her. Now the bird climbs the branches and calls the virgin by her name ; then he slips down and shakes the little satchel[4] of coloured straw in which the wild maid carries her perfumes, her white threads of the Crautá,[5] her needles of Jussára-thorn,[6] with which she works the grass-cloth, and her dyes that serve to tinge the cotton.
A suspicious noise breaks the soft harmony of the siesta. Iraçéma raises the eyes which no sun can dazzle, and her sight is troubled.
Standing before her, absorbed in gazing upon her, is a strange warrior, if indeed it is a warrior, and not some evil spirit of the forest.[7] His face is white as the sands that border the sea, his eyes are sadly blue as the deep. He bears unknown weapons, and is clad in unknown cloths.
Rapid as her eye-glance was the action of Iraçéma. An arrow shot from the bow, and red drops ran down the face of the unknown.
- ↑ Gará or Guará, the ibis of Brazil, a bird of the marshes, with beautiful red colour.
- ↑ Sabiá, a well-known bird about the size of our thrush, which sings beautifully, and can be taught like a bullfinch. It is the nightingale, the bulbul of South America.
- ↑ Ará, parroquet.
- ↑ Urú. I have called it satchel, but it is a little coffer or basket, in which the savages keep their treasures, and which accompanies them as does a lady՚s dressing-case in Europe.
- ↑ Crautá, a bromelia or wild pine-apple, from which are drawn fibres finer than thread.
- ↑ Jussára, a palm with large thorns, which are used here even in these days to divide the threads in making lace.
- ↑ Máo espirito da floresta. The natives called those evil spirits Caa-pora, "an invisible misfortune." Those who lived in the forest were most feared.