If Their Husbands Do Not Dress Them Well
Enough, They Will Soon Receive Presents From Others.
They used to
spend whole days on board our vessels, examining the fine clothes
and ornaments, and frequently made purchases at a rate which
would have made a seamstress or waiting-maid in Boston open
her eyes.
Next to the love of dress, I was most struck with the fineness of
the voices and beauty of the intonations of both sexes. Every
common ruffian-looking fellow, with a slouched hat, blanket cloak,
dirty under-dress, and soiled leather leggins, appeared to me to be
speaking elegant Spanish. It was a pleasure, simply to listen to
the sound of the language, before I could attach any meaning to it.
They have a good deal of the Creole drawl, but it is varied with an
occasional extreme rapidity of utterance, in which they seem to skip
from consonant to consonant, until, lighting upon a broad, open
vowel, they rest upon that to restore the balance of sound. The
women carry this peculiarity of speaking to a much greater extreme
than the men, who have more evenness and stateliness of utterance.
A common bullock-driver, on horseback, delivering a message, seemed
to speak like an ambassador at an audience. In fact, they sometimes
appeared to me to be a people on whom a curse had fallen, and stripped
them of everything but their pride, their manners, and their voices.
Another thing that surprised me was the quantity of silver that
was in circulation.
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