Macondo was then a village of twenty houses made of mud and cane, built on the banks of a river with clear waters that rushed down a bed of polished stones, white and enormous as prehistoric eggs. The world was so new that many things lacked names, and to mention them one had to point at them with one's finger. Every year, during the month of March, a family of ragged gypsies would set up their tent near the village, and with a great uproar of whistles and kettledrums they would show off their new inventions. First they brought the magnet. A corpulent gypsy with a wild beard and sparrow hands, who introduced himself by the name of Melquíades, gave a gruesome public demonstration of what he himself called the eighth wonder of the wise alchemists of Macedonia. He went from house to house dragging two metal ingots, and everyone was frightened to see that the cauldrons, the pots, the tongs and the braziers fell from their places, and the wood creaked from the desperation of the nails and screws trying to come loose, and even objects lost for a long time appeared where they had been most sought, and dragged themselves in turbulent disarray behind Melquíades' magic irons.