Two years in the French West Indies. Partie 2

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Vêrette.

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one : it is two or three days' work to calender a single Madras well. . . . But Yzore does not depend upon calendering alone for a living : she earns much more by t h e manufacture of moresques and of chinoises than by painting Madras turbans. . . . Everybody in Martinique who can afford it wears moresques and chinoises. The moresques are large loose comfortable pantaloons of thin printed calico {indienne),—having colored designs representing birds, frogs, leaves, lizards, flowers, butterflies, or kittens,—or perhaps representing nothing in particular, being simply arabesques. T h e chinoise is a loose body-garment, very much like the real Chinese blouse, but always of brightly colored calico with fantastic designs. These things are worn at home during siestas, after office-hours, and at night. T o take a nap during the day with one's ordinary clothing on means always a terrible drenching from perspiration, and an after-feeling of exhaustion almost indescribable—best expressed, perhaps, by the local term : corps écrasé. Therefore, on entering one's room for the siesta, one strips, puts on the light moresques and the chinoise, and dozes in comfort. A suit of this sort is very neat, often quite pretty, and very cheap (costing only about six francs) ;—the colors do not fade out in washing, and two good suits will last a year. . . . Yzore can make two pair of moresques and two chinoises in a single day upon her machine. . . . I have observed there is a prejudice here against treadle machines ;—the Creole girls are persuaded they injure the health. Most of the sewing-machines I have seen among this people are operated by hand,—with a sort of little crank. . . . X

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February SSd.

. . . O L D physicians indeed predicted it ; but who believed t h e m ? . . .


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