ways,--in salads, stews, fritters, or _akras_. Soon after this
compact cylinder of young germinating leaves has been removed,
large worms begin to appear in the hollow of the dead tree,--the
_vers-palmiste_. You may see these for sale in the market,
crawling about in bowls or cans: they are said, when fried alive,
to taste like almonds, and are esteemed as a great luxury.

... Then you begin to look about you at the faces of
the black, brown, and yellow people who are watching at you
curiously from beneath their Madras turbans, or from under the
shade of mushroom-shaped hats as large as umbrellas. And as you
observe the bare backs, bare shoulders, bare legs and arms and
feet, you will find that the colors of flesh are even more varied
and surprising than the colors of fruit. Nevertheless, it is
only with fruit-colors that many of these skin-tints can be
correctly be compared; the only terms of comparison used by the
colored people themselves being terms of this kind,--such as
_peau-chapotille_, "sapota-skin." The _sapota_ or _sapotille_ is
a juicy brown fruit with a rind satiny like a human cuticle, and
just the color, when flushed and ripe, of certain half-breed
skins. But among the brighter half-breeds, the colors, I think,
are much more fruit-like;--there are banana-tints, lemon-tones,
orange-hues, with sometimes such a mingling of ruddiness as in
the pink ripening of a mango. Agreeable to the eye the darker
skins certainly are, and often very remarkable--all clear tones
of bronze being represented; but the brighter tints are
absolutely beautiful. Standing perfectly naked at door-ways, or
playing naked in the sun, astonishing children may sometimes be
seen,--banana-colored or gulf orange babies, There is one rare
race-type, totally unseen like the rest: the skin has a perfect