gold-tone, an exquisite metallic yellow the eyes are long, and
have long silky lashes;--the hair is a mass of thick, rich,
glossy the curls that show blue lights in the sun. What mingling
of races produced this beautiful type?--there is some strange
blood in the blending,--not of coolie, nor of African, nor of
Chinese, although there are Chinese types here of indubitable
beauty. [2]

... All this population is vigorous, graceful, healthy: all you
see passing by are well made--there are no sickly faces, no
scrawny limbs. If by some rare chance you encounter a person who
has lost an arm or a leg, you can be almost certain you are
looking at a victim of the fer-de-lance,--the serpent whose venom
putrefies living tissue.... Without fear of exaggerating facts,
I can venture to say that the muscular development of the
working-men here is something which must be seen in order to
be believed;--to study fine displays of it, one should watch the
blacks and half-breeds working naked to the waist,--on the
landings, in the gas-houses and slaughter-houses or on the
nearest plantations. They are not generally large men, perhaps
not extraordinarily powerful; but they have the aspect of
sculptural or even of anatomical models; they seem absolutely
devoid of adipose tissue; their muscles stand out with a saliency
that astonishes the eye. At a tanning-yard, while I was watching
a dozen blacks at work, a young mulatto with the mischievous face
of a faun walked by, wearing nothing but a clout (_lantcho_)
about his loins; and never, not even in bronze, did I see so
beautiful a play of muscles. A demonstrator of anatomy could
have used him for a class-model;--a sculptor wishing to shape a
fine Mercury would have been satisfied to take a cast of such a