SOME SUMMER DAYS IN MARTINIQUE. 285 
articles from the United States into favor. Clothing 
is higher than in the English islands, and tailors few 
and inexpert. The business dress is the loose-fitting, 
blue or black, blouse, and white pants. The hot and 
stiff panama is preferred to all other hats, though its 
closeness of texture, affording no chance for ventila- 
tion, makes it the very worst possible for a tropical 
climate. Some of the more sensible, however, are 
adopting the cool and well-ventilated Indian pith hel- 
met, so much worn in the English islands. Panamas 
are the rage, and every street has its magasin, or 
store, with the conspicuous sign, “ Chapeaux de Pana- 
ma veritable,” some of which sell as high as fifteen’ 
or twenty dollars. Silks and cottons are extremely 
dear. The only thing cheap and tolerably good is 
the claret, which comes direct from France duty free ; 
and the vessel that brings the claret carries back as 
ballast the essential logwood. 
Nothing can be said against the costumes of the 
ladies, which are really elegant and in good taste. 
As in these islands there are no teachers of the terpsi- 
chorean art, so there are no dressmakers—or, if 
any, very few —and the ladies cut and make their 
own garments. In this they take especial pride, and 
their toilettes, as seen on a Sunday at ten-o’clock 
mass, do credit to their hands and heads. There is 
nothing that attracts a stranger’s attention so quickly 
as the costumes of the hucksters, the dem monde, and 
the market-women: a single flowing robe of bright- 
colored calico, or white muslin, sometimes of silk, 
loose at the throat, and with a waistband high up 
under the shoulder-blades. It is that of the past 
century. These women are mulattresses, quadroons, 
