The creole temperament is one of great nervous sensibility; phlegmatic characters are anomalies; a disposition to violent extremes of anger or affection is often masked by an exterior appearance of listless indifference. The climate itself (nine months of summer heat, three of snowless chill, long periods of heavy calm, broken by storms of extraordinary and splendid violence--a climate enervating, fitful, luxuriant) has reflected its characteristics in the native population. The mind develops precociously, blossoms richly. There are few educated creoles who cannot speak two or three languages well; many speak more; and the writer has known one who was almost a Mezzofanti. Love of the mother-country is not dead among the creoles, and their attachment to ancient French customs has but little abated. Their home life has scarcely changed during a century, although they are becoming less socially exclusive. Nevertheless, the Northern stranger invited to visit the home of a creole family may even now consider himself the subject of a rare compliment. Such a visit, however, will scarcely be made within the limits of the old colonial city, for the creoles are no longer there. They have moved away to newer districts north and south--away from the decaying streets and the crumbling cemeteries--out to quiet suburbs where the air is sweet with breath of jasmine flowers and orange-blossoms, out to dreamy Bayou Saint Jean, where clusters of white-pillared cottages slumber in green. They have mostly abandoned the Carré to the European Latins--French emigrants from the Mediterranean coasts, Italians, Sicilians, Spaniards, Greeks; to the population of the French Market, the venders of fruits and meats; to the keepers of what Sala called 'absurd little shops'; and especially to the French-speaking element of color, which still clings to the ruined Past with something of the strange affection that erst subsisted between master and slave.