12 



INCIDENTS OF TRAVEL. 



the Streets and stores were thronged with them, and I 

 might have fancied myself in the capital of a negro re- 

 public. They were a fine-looking race, tall, straight, 

 and athletic, with skins black, smooth, and glossy as 

 velvet, and well dressed, the men in white cotton shirts 

 and trousers, with straw hats, and the women in white 

 frocks with short sleeves and broad red borders, and 

 adorned with large red earrings and necklaces ; and I 

 could not help remarking that the frock was their only 

 article of dress, and that it was the fashion of these 

 sable ladies to drop this considerably from off the right 

 shoulder, and to carry the skirt in the left hand, and 

 raise it to any height necessary for crossing puddles. 



On my way back I stopped at the house of a mer- 

 chant, whom I found at what is called a second break- 

 fast. The gentleman sat on one side of the table and 

 his lady on the other. At the head was a British offi- 

 cer, and opposite him a mulatto ; on his left was an- 

 other officer, and opposite him also a mulatto. By 

 chance a place was made for me between the two col- 

 oured gentlemen. Some of my countrymen, perhaps, 

 would have hesitated about taking it, but I did not ; 

 both were well dressed, well educated, and polite. 

 They talked of their mahogany works, of England, 

 hunting, horses, ladies, and wine ; and before I had 

 been an hour in Balize I learned that the great work 

 of practical amalgamation, the subject of so much an- 

 gry controversy at home, had been going on quietly 

 for generations ; that colour was considered mere mat- 

 ter of taste ; and that some of the most respectable in- 

 habitants had black wives and mongrel children, whom 

 they educated with as much care, and made money 

 for with as much zeal, as if their skins were perfectly 

 white. 



