The Daily times. [volume] (Richmond, Va.) 1886-1889, 1888-08-13
NATIVES OF MARTINIQUE.
A Peculiar Typo of Physical Beauty-A
Blending of Races,

Then YOU begin to look about you ut
the black. brown and yellow faces that
are studying YOU curiously from beneath
the yellow striped Madras turbans, or
from under the shadow of mushroom
shaped straw hats large as umbrellas
Watching the bare backs, bare shoulders,
bare legs and arms and feet, YOU find
that the cOlors of flesh are more varied
and surprising than the colors of fruits.
And it is only with fruit colors that
many OF these skin tints can be compared
at all, the only terms of comparison used
by the colored people themselves being
terms of this kind, such as peau-sapotille,
"sapota skim" The sapota or sapotille
is juicy brown fruit, with rind
satiny like a human cuticle, and
Just the color, when fresh and
ripe, OF a fine mulatto skin. But among
the brighter half breeds think
the colors are much more fruit like; there
are gourd tints, banana tints. orange col
ors, with occasional jflushes of pink show
ing through, like the first pink of the
mango. Agreeable TO the eye the darker
tints certainly are. and often very re-
markable, all tones of bronze being repre-
sented; but the brighter hues are abso-
lutely beautiful in certain half breed
types, coolie and quadroon. Standing
perfectly naked at doorways, or playing
naked in the sun, astonishing children
may be seen--banana colored and mango
colored babies. But there is one peculiar
type, totally unlike all the rest; the skin
is an exquisite metallic yellow, perfect
gold tone; the eyes are long and black;
the intensely dark and lustrous hair falls
over the neck in heavy mass of thick,
rich. glossy curls that show blue lights in
the sun.
| cannot speak of this comely and ex-
traordinary type without translating
passage from DR.. j. }. j. Cornilliac, an
eminent Martinique physician, who re-
Gently published a most valuable series
upon the ethnology, climatology and his
tory of the Antilles In these he writes:
"When, among the populations of the
Antilles, we first notice those remark
able metis whose olive skins, elegant and
iES uiNo, anu
regular features remind us Of the inhabi-
tants of Madras or Pondicherry, we ask
ourselves in wOnder-while looking at
their long eyes full of strange and
gentle melancholy especially among the
women, and at the black, rich, silky
cleaning hair curling in abundance over
the temples and falling in profuson over
the neck-to what human race can be-
long this singular variety, in which there
is a dominant characteristic that seems
indelible, and always shows more and
more strongly III proportion rs the type
is further removed from the African ele-
ment. 1t is the Cdrib blood, blended
with blood of Europeans and of blacks,
which in spite Of all subsequent cross
ings, and in spite of the fact that it has
not been renewed for more than two
hundred years, still conserycs, rs re-
markedly as at the time Of the first inter-
blending, the race characteristic that in
variably reveals its presence in the blood
of every being through whose veins it
flows
All this population is vigorous, grace
full. healthy; all you see passing by are
well made; there arc no sickly faces, no
scrawny limbs. If by some rare chance
you encounter a person who has lost an
arm or leg. you can be almost certain
you are looking at a victim Of the fer de
serpent whose venom putrefies
living tissue Without fear Of exagger-
4 tl,ot q l,n
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
plantations. They are not
large men, perhaps not extraordi-
narily powerful: but they have the
aspect Of sculptural or even Of ana
tomical models; they seem absolutely
devoid of adipose tissue; their muscles
stand out with saliency that astonishes
the eye. Ii is marvellous. At tanning
yard, while | was watching dozen
blacks at work. a young mulatto, with
the mischievous face of faun, walked
BY, wearing nothing but clout about
his loins; and never, not even in bronze,
lid see SO beautifu! play Of muscles.
A demonstrators of anatomy could have
used him for class model; a sculptor,
wishing to shape fine Mercury in bronze,
would be satisfied TO take cast OF such
, body, without thinking Of making one
modification from neck to hecl.-Lafaca-
lio Hearn i'm Harnor's Magazine