XX.


While we were eating supper, a dozen Indian girls were gathered about
a table in one of the large rooms behind the house, busily engaged
in blowing out the contents of several hundred eggs and filling the
hollowed shells with cologne, flour, tinsel, bright scraps of paper.
Each egg-was then sealed with white wax, and ready for the cascaron
frolic of the evening.

We had been dancing, singing, and talking for an hour after rosario,
when the eggs were brought in. In an instant every girl's hair was
unbound, a wild dive was made for the great trays, and eggs flew in
every direction. Dancing was forgotten. The girls and men chased each
other about the room, the air was filled with perfume and glittering
particles, the latter looking very pretty on black floating hair.
Etiquette demanded that only one egg should be thrown by the same hand
at a time, but quick turns of supple wrists followed each other very
rapidly. To really accomplish a feat the egg must crash on the back of
the head, and each occupied in attack was easy prey.

Chonita was like a child. Two priests were of our party, and she made
a target of their shaven crowns, shrieking with delight. They vowed
revenge, and chased her all over the house; but not an egg had broken
on that golden mane. She was surrounded at one time by caballeros, but
she whirled and doubled so swiftly that every cascaron flew afield.