carnival are the street comparsas, or
companies of masqueraders—mamarrachos as
they are called in the Creole vernacular—
and the masked balls. Here you have
a comparsa comprised of pure Africans;
though you wouldn't believe it, for their
flat-nosed faces are illumined by a coat of
light flesh colour, and their woolly heads
are dyed a blazing crimson. The males
have also assumed female attire, though
their better halves have not returned the
compliment. Here is another and a better
comparsa, of mulattoes, with cheeks of
flaming vermilion, wigs of yellow tow, and
false beards. Their everyday apparel is
worn reversed, and the visible lining is
embellished with tinsel, paint, and ribbons.
They are preceded by a band of music; a
big drum, hand tambours, basket rattles,
conch shells, and a nutmeg-grater. The
members of this goodly company dance and
sing as they pass rapidly along the streets,
occasionally halting in their career to
serenade a friend. Now, they pause before a
cottage, at the door of which is a group of
mulaticas francesas, or French mulatto girls.
The maskers salute them in falsetto voices,
and address them by their Christian names
as a guarantee of their acquaintanceship.
The girls try hard to recognise the
disfigured faces of their visitors. At last:

"Holá! Musyer Fransoir, je vous
conóse!" cries a yellow divinity in Creole
French.

"Venici! Monte!" calls another; at
which invitation, Musyer Fransoir, who
has stood confessed, ascends the narrow
side steps which give entrance to the
cottage and vanishes through a diminutive
door. He appears again, hatless, and
beckons his companions, who follow his
lead with alacrity. Soon, a hollow drumming,
rattling, and grating, is heard, varied
by the occasional twang of an exceedingly
light guitar making vain efforts to promote
harmony. A shuffling of slippered feet,
and voices singing, signify that a dance
is pending. Everybody—meaning myself
and my neighbours—moves towards the
scene. Everybody passes up the perilous
steps, and endeavours to squeeze into the
spare apartment. A few succeed in
establishing a permanent footing in the room,
and the rest stand at the doorway and
window, or burst through the chamber by
a back door into an open yard. In carnival
time, everybody's house is everybody else's
castle.

There is a perfect Babel at the French
criolla's. Some are endeavouring to dance
with little more terra firma to gyrate upon
than " La Nena" had on her foot square of
table. Others are beating time on tables,
trays, and tin pots. Somebody has brought
a dismal accordion, but he is so jammed up
in a corner by the dancers, that more wind
is jerked out of him than he can possibly
jerk out of his instrument. The man with
the faint guitar is no better off. Every
now and then a verse of dismal song is
pronounced by one of the dancers.

There is a pause—an interval of ten
minutes or so for refreshments. English
bottled ale at two shillings the bottle is
dispensed, together with intensely black
coffee, which leaves a gold-brown stain on the
cup in proof of its genuineness; and this
is followed by the indispensable nip of the
native brandy called aguardiente. Stumps
of damp cigars are abandoned for fresh
ones, and the air is redolent of smoke,
beer, and brown perspiration. If you
remain long in this atmosphere, which
reminds you of a combination of a London
cook-shop and a museum of stuffed birds
and mummies, you will become impregnated
by it, and then not all the perfumes of
Araby will eradicate it from your system.

I need not go far to witness the street
sights in carnival time. Many of them I
can enjoy from my position on my balcony.
"Enter" the shade of an Othello in false
whiskers. He is attired in a red shirt, top
boots, and a glazed cap. In his mouth is
a clay pipe; in his hand a black bottle:
both products of Great Britain. He is
followed by a brother black, in the disguise
of a gentleman, with enormous shirt collars
and heavy spectacles. In his arms rests
a colossal volume, upon which his attention
is riveted, and against the brim of his
napless hat is stuck a lighted taper. He
stumbles along with uneven step, and
occasionally pauses for the purpose of giving
tongue to his profound cogitations. The
crowd jeer him as he passes, but he is
unmoved, and the expression of his copper-
coloured countenance is ever grave and
unchangeable. His eyes—or more
correctly speaking, his spectacles—never
wander from the mystic page, save when
he trims his taper of brown wax, or
exchanges it for another and a longer. One
cannot help remarking how on all
occasions the "oppressed" negro preserves his
natural gravity. Whether it be his
pleasure or his pain, he takes it stoically,
without any observable alteration in his
sombre physiognomy. How do you
reconcile the singular anomaly of a nigger