people, who soon caught and held his attention, recalling Mrs.
Cortlandt's words regarding the intermixture of bloods in this
country; for every imaginable variety of mongrel breed looked out
from the loitering crowd. But no matter what the racial blend,
black was the fundamental tone. Undeniably the Castilian strain
was running out; not one passer-by in ten seemed really white.
Naturally, there was no color line. Well-dressed girls, evidently
white, or nearly so, went arm and arm with wenches as black as
night; men of every shade fraternized freely.

It was a picturesque and ever-changing scene. Kirk saw dark-faced
girls wearing their unfailing badge of maidenhood--a white
mantilla--followed invariably at a distance by respectful admirers
who never presumed to walk beside them; wives whom marriage had
forced to exchange the white shawl for the black, escorted by
their husbands; huge, slouching Jamaican negroes of both sexes;
silent-footed, stately Barbadians who gave a touch of savagery to
the procession. Some of the women wore giant firebugs, whose
glowing eyes lent a ghostly radiance to hair or lace, at once
weird and beautiful. Round and round the people walked to the
strains of their national music, among them dozens upon dozens of
the ever-present little black-and-tan policemen, who constitute
the republic's standing army.

As the evening drew on, Kirk became conscious of an unwonted
sensation. Once before he had had the same feeling--while on a
moose-trail in Maine. But now there was no guide, with a packful
of food, to come to his relief, and he could not muster up the
spirit that enables men to bear vacation hardships with
cheerfulness.