34 Travels and Adventures 



wood in the form of an overgrown mustard-spoon, 

 which he wriggles from side to side in the water 

 in imitation of the action of a fish's tail. For 

 the price of a few tiny coins, something- less than 

 half a farthing each, crowds of people of all classes 

 in search of business or pleasure are conveyed from 

 street to street, if not with the greatest swiftness, cer- 

 tainly with the greatest security, as, up to the present, 

 an accident has never been known. The language 

 spoken here is perhaps the most curious of the 

 novelties which attract the attention of the stranger 

 on arriving at Curacoa. The extraordinary arrange- 

 ment of sounds called Creole-Dutch strikes upon 

 the ear as something between the QTOwlin^ of do^s 

 and the cackling of poultry, an arrangement of 

 gutterals and nasals equally as difficult to describe 

 as it is to understand ; it appears to me to possess 

 neither rules nor system, but, should it have both 

 to the initiated, it is certainly devoid of beauty of 

 euphony. The people seem to be pre-occupied, with 

 a quiet industry so peculiar to the character of the 

 Dutchman. Scores of women are employed in 

 making a kind of straw hat of soft white grass, 

 very inferior, however, to those made in many parts 

 of Colombia. Another class of industry carried on 

 here on a considerable scale is the manufacture of 

 gold and silver ornaments in filigree work, and, 



