They Can Be Told By Their Complexions, Dress,
Manner, And Also By Their Speech; For, Calling Themselves Castilians,
They Are Very Ambitious Of Speaking The Pure Castilian Language,
Which Is Spoken In A Somewhat Corrupted Dialect By The Lower
Classes.
From this upper class, they go down by regular shades,
growing more and more dark and muddy, until you
Come to the pure
Indian, who runs about with nothing upon him but a small piece
of cloth, kept up by a wide leather strap drawn round his waist.
Generally speaking, each person's caste is decided by the quality
of the blood, which shows itself, too plainly to be concealed,
at first sight. Yet the least drop of Spanish blood, if it be
only of quadroon or octoroon, is sufficient to raise them from
the rank of slaves, and entitle them to a suit of clothes - boots,
hat, cloak, spurs, long knife, and all complete, though coarse
and dirty as may be, - and to call themselves Españolos, and to
hold property, if they can get any.
The fondness for dress among the women is excessive, and is often
the ruin of many of them. A present of a fine mantle, or of a
necklace or pair of ear-rings, gains the favor of the greater part
of them. Nothing is more common than to see a woman living in
a house of only two rooms, and the ground for a floor, dressed in
spangled satin shoes, silk gown, high comb, and gilt, if not gold,
ear-rings and necklace.
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