The coolie women make a vivid spot of color in our pageant—like some glowing tropical flower. Many of them are beautiful in feature and all are graceful in bearing. There never were women who so perfectly understood the art of walking. They swing along erect and lithe with a springing step and perfect coördination of every muscle. Their heavy bracelets and anklets tinkle musically as they move; their gay red and yellow and blue scarfs flutter in the breeze. The poise of their bodies reflects the perfect calm and repose of their smooth, brown faces. What an antithesis they are to the ponderous old black women who are striding along, with bedraggled skirts gathered up in a roll around their massive waists. They are untidy and slatternly in dress, heavy and awkward in movement in comparison with the straight, slim, coolie women. They are full of loud laughter and talk and song. At every street corner they gather in friendly, jovial groups, while the coolie women are strangely silent and reserved. No wonder that these two races so hate and scorn one another, for in temperament they are as far apart as the poles! The British Guiana blacks were to us an unending source of interest and amusement. They were always courteous and kindly and most original. Even when swearing at each other their manner was always polite and each anathema ended with a civil “Suh!” Their dialect was at first very difficult to understand, but when our ears became familiar with it we found it singularly attractive. All the a’s are broad, even in such words as bad and man; while the intonation is indescribable, the verbs in a sentence being always emphasized and given a slight rising inflection, as for example, “I have _been_ to Berbice.” An interrogation is often not at all indicated by the form of a question, but merely by the rising inflection, as—“These are nice?” The general effect of their speech is a very musical and distinctive intonation. Always the irrepressible spirit of the black rises serenely above all the vicissitudes of life. A black woman from Arakaka was sentenced to a month in jail. Upon her return she was welcomed by a crowd of friends, all eager to hear something of that mysterious jail, to which none of them were sure they might not some day go. To their questions “How was it? how was it?” the heroine of the occasion replied with great dignity, “Me chile, dey see I was a lady an’ dey didn’ give me de same work as de other prisoners.” Later, on a trip down the river, the same woman, meeting the magistrate who had sentenced her, proudly remarked, “_Now_ I travel by meself”; her only previous experience in travelling having been under the escort of the police! Many of the blacks have far advanced cases of elephantiasis. In a five minutes’ walk one will see a half dozen examples of this deadly disease; but it takes more than elephantiasis or jail to sadden the volatile spirits of the negro! [Illustration: FIG. 60. THE GEORGETOWN SEA-WALL.]