La
Vérette.
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Versailles. And in the Rue Ste.-Marthe there are three young girls sick with the disease, who hear the blowing of the horns and the pattering of feet and clapping of hands in chorus ;—they get up to look through the slats of their windows on the masquerade,—and the Creole passion of the dance comes upon them. " A h ! " cries o n e , — " n o u ké bien amieusé nou!—c'est zaffai si nou mb !" [We will have our fill of fun : what matter if we die after !] And all mask, and join the rout, and dance down to the Savane, and over the river-bridge into the high streets of the Fort, carrying contagion with them ! . . . No extraordinary example, this : the ranks of the dancers hold many and many a verrettier. VI. . . . T H E costumes are rather disappointing,—though the mummery has some general characteristics that are not unpicturesque ;—for example, the predominance of crimson and canary-yellow in choice of color, and a marked predilection for pointed hoods and high-peaked headdresses. M o c k religious costumes also form a striking element in the general tone of the display,—Franciscan, Dominican, or Penitent habits,—usually crimson or yellow, rarely sky-blue. There are no historical costumes, few eccentricities or monsters: only a few "vampire-bat" head-dresses abruptly break the effect of the peaked caps and the hoods. . . . Still there are some decidedly local ideas in dress which deserve notice,—the congo, the bébé (or ti-manmaille), the ti nègue gouos-sirop (" little molasses-negro"); and the diablesse. The congo is merely the exact reproduction of the dress worn by workers on the plantations. For the women, a gray calico shirt and coarse petticoat of percaline ; with two coarse handkerchiefs {mouchoirs fatas), one for her neck, and one for the head, over which is worn a monstrous straw hat;—she walks either barefoot or shod