They stared, they rose in amazement at the sight of those gods, Roderigo Jerez, Luis Torres and Juan Lepe.

They stood like statues with great eyes and parted lips.

For us, coming silently upon them, we had too our moment of astonishment.
They were three copper men, naked, fairly tall and well to look at.

But each had between his lips what seemed a brown stick, burning at the far end, dropping a light ash and sending up a thin cloud of odorous smoke.
These burning sticks they dropped as they rose.

They had seemed so silent, so contented, so happy, sitting there with backs to trees, a firebrand in each mouth, I felt a love for them! Luis thought the lighted sticks some rite of their religion, but after a while when we came to examine them, we found them not true stick, but some large, thickish brown leaf tightly twisted and pressed together and having a pungent, not unpleasing odor.