handkerchiefs on their heads, on top of which they wore felt or straw
hats.

They talked with great energy and many gestures as they smoked their
cigars. Diego said they were stevedores and other laborers who had just
finished their day's work.

The streets were paved with small cobble stones, or else not paved at
all, and the sidewalk was very narrow and elevated, more like a beach
than a walk, and everybody seemed to take to the middle of the street.

Nobody took any notice of the two lads, for sailors were no rarity in
those parts, and they worked their way along the narrow, crowded, noisy
streets, sometimes jumping to one side to avoid a mule dray or some
heavy burden, carried by a number of negroes upon their heads, the
bearers singing in chorus to warn people out of the way.

Occasionally they met a lady dressed in white, with bare head and fan in
hand, who had driven down in her volante to fetch a father or a husband
from his place of business.

This vehicle struck Lee as being very odd. It was a sort of large, open
gig, mounted on very high wheels and drawn by a horse at the end of very
long shafts, which kept him several feet from the volante.

The horse was always ridden by a black postillion in gorgeous livery,
glazed hat and cockade, and enormous boots, who cracked a whip with a
noise like pistol-shots, to show that an important person was coming.

A number of times Lee stopped to look at the novel sights about him, but