What old Bryan Edwards, in his excellent but obsolete 'History of the British West Indies;' wrote concerning the creoles of the Antilles, largely applies to the creoles of Louisiana likewise, especially in relation to their physical characteristics. In whatever part of the civilized Temperate Zone pronounced, the very word 'creole' conveys to the hearer fancies tropical as the poetry of Baudelaire; to the imagination of well-informed readers the creole invariably appears as a person of European blood corporeally and morally modified by the influences of a torrid climate. Whether we hear of the English creoles of the West Indian, East Indian, or West African colonies, the French creoles of Algeria, Martinique, or Senegal, or the Dutch creoles of Malabar, the name invariably provokes fancies of burning suns, of monstrous vegetation, of nights lighted by the Southern Cross. In New Orleans we are only at the Gate of the Tropics; sometimes our orange-trees shiver in frosty winds, our rare palms droop in January colds. But the climate is torrid enough nevertheless to have produced marked physical changes in the native white population of Louisiana during the lapse of generations. It has modified the osteogeny of the true creoles almost as remarkably as in Martinique or Trinidad; it has greatly deepened the eye-sockets to shelter the sight from the furnace glow of summer heat; it has made limbs suppler, extremities more delicate; and to these changes wrought in the body's framework is wholly attributable that languid and singular grace which distinguishes the _Louisianaise_ among her fairer American sisters. Creole eyes--the eyes that tantalized Gottschalk into the musical utterances of _Ojos Criollos_--are large, luminous, liquidly black, deeply fringed, and their darkness is strangely augmented by the uncommon depth of the orbit. The pilose system--to use anatomical phraseology---is richly developed; the women have magnificent hair, and creole beards and mustaches are usually very handsome. Formerly the Louisiana creoles excelled in exercises demanding grace and quickness of eye; they were fine dancers and famous swordsmen--indeed, the art of fencing is not yet lost among them. The beauty of the women is peculiar; they possess a _sveltesse_--a slender elegance that is very fascinating; but to Northerners they seem fragile of physique, more delicate than they really are. A rosy face, a bright, fresh complexion, is rarely seen among them; they have an ivorine tint, a convalescent pallor, that contrasts oddly with the fire of their dark pupils and the lustrous blackness of their hair. When the tint is darker,--a Spanish swarthiness,--the effect is less strange. Creole blondes are few.