clothes against the cold. This gray bark is a striking offset to the dark, rich leaves, which are the blanches themselves. Where these leaves push forth from the trunk, from ten to fifty feet from the ground, a cluster of green balls, of various sizes and ages, are hanging. This green rind is an inch thick. Then the black shell known to us is reached, and inside of that, not the thick white substance we find on opening it, but a thin soft layer, or third rind, the most of the hollow being filled with milk. Later in the season the milk coagulates to meat, and the cocoa-nut of commerce is completed. It is cultivated extensively here, both for home use and the Northern market.
The people are chiefly Indians, not of the Aztec, but Toltec variety. This is a nation hundreds of years older than the Aztecs, and who are supposed to be the builders of the famous monuments of Central America, and to have been driven from Mexico southward about a thousand years ago. They are of the usual Indian tint, but, unlike our aborigines, live in comfortable houses, are engaged in industrious callings, and dress in a comely manner.
Both sexes wear white, the men and boys having often one leg of their trowsers rolled up, for what purpose we could not guess, unless it be for the more cleanly fording of the brooklets and mudlets that occur. It was a token of neatness, if that was the reason, that was very commendable.
The women wear a skirt of white, and a loose white waist separate from the skirt, and hanging sometimes near to the bottom of the under-garment. This over-skirt, or robe, is ornamented with fringe and borders worked in blue. The head-dress is a shawl or mantle of light cotton gauze, of blue or purple, thrown gracefully over the head and shoulders. One lady, evidently thinking well of herself and her apparel, had a ring on every finger of each hand, and gold ornaments hanging profusely from her neck. I have seen many ladies who, if they distributed the rings singly on each finger, would not find both hands sufficient for their display. This light-brown laughing madam had her limits seemingly, beyond which she would not go—eight rings and no more.
