Most of the women had a simple white or flowered skirt (_nagua_) fastened above the hips, with a “_guipil_” or sort of large vandyke, with holes, through which the arms were passed, and which hung loosely down over the breast. In some cases the _guipil_ was rather short, and exposed a dark strip of skin from one to four inches wide, which the wanton wind often made much broader. It was very clear that false hips and other civilized contrivances had not reached here, and it was equally clear that they were not needed to give fullness to the female figures which we saw around us. All the women had their hair braided in two long locks which hung down behind, and which gave them a school-girly look quite out of keeping with the cool, deliberate manner in which they puffed their cigars, occasionally forcing the smoke in jets from their nostrils. Their feet were innocent of stockings, but the more fashionable ladies wore silk or satin slippers, which (it is hoped our scrutiny was not indelicately close) were quite as likely to be soiled on the inside as the out. A number had gaudy-colored _rebosos_ thrown over their heads, and altogether, the entire group, with an advance-guard of wolfish, sullen-looking curs, was strikingly novel, and not a little picturesque. We leaped ashore upon the yielding sand with a delight known only to the voyager who has been penned up for a month in a small, uncomfortable vessel, and without further ceremony passed through the crowd of gazers, and started down the principal avenue, which, as we learned, had been called “King street” since the English usurpation. The doors of the various queer-looking little houses were all open, and in all of them might be seen hammocks suspended between the front and back entrances, so as to catch the passing current of air. In some of these, reclining in attitudes suggestive of most intense laziness, were swarthy figures of men, whose constitutional apathy not even the unwonted occurrence of the arrival, at the same moment, of two ships could disturb. The women, it is needless to say, were all on the beach, except a few decrepit old dames, who gazed at us from the door-ways. Passing through the town, we entered the forest, followed by a train of boys and some ill-looking, grown-up vagabonds. The path led to a beautiful lagoon, fenced in by a bank of verdure, upon the edges of which were a number of women, naked to the waist, who had not yet heard the news; they were washing, an operation quite different from that of our own country, and which consisted in dipping the clothes in the water, placing them on the bottom of an old canoe, and beating them violently with clubs. Visions of buttonless shirts rose up incontinently in long perspective, as we turned down a narrow path which led along the shores of the lagoon, and invited us to the cool, deep shades of the forest. A flock of noisy paroquets were fluttering above us, and strange fruits and flowers appeared on all sides.