The chief peculiarities in the coloured race are, the extreme pliancy of limbs, attenuation of person, large black eyes, and a profusion of black curling hair. The men are generally under than above the middle size, but in most instances, possessed of good figures.
The females are also small and slender, and are noted for an ambling gait, combined in many of them with an extreme affectation of manners. Many of them, unknowingly, are warm admirers of Lord Chesterfield’s “Advice,” and practise the “airs and graces” before a looking-glass with an intenseness and indefatigability which, no doubt, that great philosopher would fully appreciate.
We hear of the beautiful Narcissus being so enamoured of his own lovely features, when reflected in the clear waters, that he pined into a jonquil. Now, I cannot take upon myself to state this is exactly the case with the West Indian brunettes; but they do certainly “lingering look,” until a pretty considerable stock of patience would be exhausted.
Their toilets are laborious in the extreme; and they might exclaim, with Lady Mary W. Montague’s “Flavia,”—
“—————— I oft have sate,
While hours unheeded pass’d, in deep debate
How curls should fall, or where a braid to place;
If blue or scarlet best became my face!”
Sundays, marriages, and funerals, are the occasions appointed for making the greatest display. At other periods, a long dressing-gown, or “wrapper,” as it is termed in Antigua, with a many-coloured cotton kerchief around their shoulders, and their heads perhaps enveloped in a similar article, and slip-shod shoes, constitute their attire. But when “high-days and holidays” come, and an étalage is contemplated, one or two of their friends are generally called in to officiate as tire-women, and it must be allowed, their place is then no sinecure.
The style of dress adopted by ladies of this rank, when abroad, is very superb! Silks and satins of the most approved colours, challis and mousseline-de-laines of the gayest patterns, mantelets, and “Victoria cloaks,” bonnets covered with flowers, silk stockings, parasols of the most fashionable dimensions, gloves of the softest dyes, shoes and boots of every shade, reticules, with tassels and all complete, and pocket handkerchiefs, ornamented with lace in the manner dictated by the changeful goddess, added to a rather exuberant display of bijouterie, whose gold is deeply alloyed, and whose gems owe their brightest rays to the aid of different coloured foils, serve to increase the charms of the olive-tinged creole beauties.
Those of this class who frequent the chapel, and term themselves Methodists, make some slight difference in their apparel. Their bonnets, for example, are divested of flowers on the outside, for which they make amends by various twinings and counter-twinings of glossy ribbon and cotton lace, and filling their caps—I beg pardon, I mean their brides—but I am such an indifferent votary of fashion, that I am ever forgetting her technical terms—their brides, then, with such a profusion of flowers, which be they of Amaranthine birth I know not, but I am very sure, they are like nothing earthly—that their eyes, nose, and mouth, just peep forth like sentinels from some guarded fortress. Others, more scrupulous I suppose, discard the use of flowers altogether, and in their room call to their aid snowy blondes, and bows and puffs of choicest ribands. Jewellery is also interdicted, although a few of the smarter of the “chapel belles” contrive to smuggle a ring or two, a mock-cameo brooch, or a treble-gilt chain, into their outward adornments. Fashion is, however, worshipped by all. Their bonnets must be of the proper size, their collars and capes of the proper shape, their dresses of the proper length and breadth, and their waists reduced to the proper circumference.
But the sleeves of their dresses are the parts appropriated to the display of their most exquisite skill. One poor human brain could never invent the puffings, plaitings, and gatherings; quiltings, flutings, and bandings, which are lavished upon that peculiar portion of their dress; to devise them must be an arduous task, to construct them an herculean labour. The arrangement of their hair is also a work of no trifling nature, and takes up no small portion of their time; and the dealers in oils and pomades derive no small profit from such articles, which are indispensable in making their masses of black locks repose in their proper position.
But, jesting apart, it is really the very pinnacle of absurdity, to see the rage to which dress is carried, by this class of persons in particular, when their style of living and rank in society are taken into consideration. Their mothers are of that class who have been already described when speaking of the negroes, but who, it must be mentioned, disdain that term. Others again are mongrels or mulattos; themselves the offspring of those illicit alliances for which the West Indies, in their days of darkness, have been so disgracefully noted. These mothers have had, in almost every instance, the entire management of their children. Perfectly uneducated themselves, they of course see no charms in knowledge, and except the simple act of being able to spell through an easy lesson, or scrawl their own names, these unfortunate girls are brought up with no higher ambition than the wearing smart clothes, utterly unbefitting their station, and spending their lives in brushing and dressing their hair, or rubbing their teeth with a roll of tobacco. While their mothers, who keep a small shop, sell in the market, or huckster about the town to gain a subsistence, think they have performed the part of a good parent, by procuring for their daughters clothing which every well-thinking person must mourn to see them arrayed in.