This is a specialty of all the district; throughout the Chocho towns, they make an excellent grade of palm-hats and everyone engages in the making.

Both men and women braid palm, and in every yard there is excavated in the soft, tufaceous rock, a _cueva_, or cave, in which they work.

Here the palm is left between times, and here two persons generally work together, each braiding at a hat, while a little cross, cut in the rock-wall, looks down upon the work, for good luck.

These caves have a narrow opening upward and are scarcely large enough to admit the two persons who sit at their work.

The object of the cave is to keep the work moist, as the plaiting cannot be well done, if the palm dries out.
The Monday we were there, the victory of February 5th was celebrated.
The day began with music by the brass-band, from the roof of the _presidencia_.