32 
TRINIDAD. 
a class, they dislike cutting canes, and dislike much 
more the weeding of them. The Coolies do nearly all 
the cane-weeding throughout the island, and this of 
course is a very important, if not the principal work. 
The crop lasts but one-fourth of the year, the other 
three-fourths are spent in preparing the canes for cut- 
ting. During crop very few hands are idle, but during 
the wet season, many Creoles never leave their own 
little gardens ; so that the chief of the directly agricul- 
tural work of the estates is performed by the Coolies. 
The Coolies are very abstemious, saving nearly all 
they earn, with a view to carrying hack their earnings 
to their own country, where, with the amount of money 
they can save here, they will among their countrymen 
he considered very wealthy persons. The Coolies are 
very fond of loading the persons of their wives with 
abundance of silver ornaments, armlets, sometimes one 
on each arm, and sometimes six, or even ten armlets on 
each arm, anklets, ear-rings, nose rings, and silver tires 
round their necks. Eings on toes and fingers, some- 
times, are very numerous. The dress of both male and 
female is certainly becoming to them, though at first 
there does appear too much of the person exposed. 
The men wear, some a turban, but most a small cap of 
figured velvet, like a smoking cap, though more in the 
shape of a Glengarry than a Turkish cap. A tight-fitting 
coloured kind of vest, with an ample “ capra,” or 
several yards of cotton, rolled in their own peculiar 
manner, around the loins and limbs. The women have 
a similar tight-fitting A^est, either with a narrow skirt 
falling to the ankles, or an abundance of “ capra,” in 
which they enroll themselves ; and a number of yards 
of cotton, or coloured, pink or green muslin, as a turban 
and face cloth. The women have certainly a very grace- 
ful mode of Avrapping their head-cloth about them, both 
so as to protect the head from the sun, their faces from 
the gaze of others, and tlieir bosoms from exposure. 
The nose-ring, Avhich appears approjiriate to a Euro- 
