Moseh’s ineffable Leadership Qualities had caused a whole retinue of sanbenito -and-dunce-cap-wearing crypto-Jews to fall in step behind them. They paraded through inexplicable concentrations of Negroes and Filipinos and over foamy puddles of congealed lava, past sugar-works smoking and steaming. At riverbanks they struck complicated bargains with Indians, naked except for loincloths and lines of tattooed dots on their faces, and were towed across on balsas made of planks lashed across bundles of air-filled calabashes, while other Indians back-carried the burros across fords. They steered clear of settlements or else rode through them as directly as possible, for now that they were out of the city, most of the townspeople were criollos (mixed-blood, born here) who bore a mad hostility towards Europeans. They’d have drawn much unwanted attention, and criollo boys would have been darting out and chucking stones at them, even if they hadn’t been wearing sanbenitos .