Without exception they are adepts in carrying things on their heads; consequently, they usually possess an erect carriage and splendid bearing. It is said that the first ambition of a West Indian negro child is to learn to carry things on its head in imitation of its parents. Frequently a negro will be seen with nothing in either hand, but carrying a closed umbrella balanced horizontally on his head. Once in a while one may be seen to get a letter from the post office, place it on top of his head, weight it down with a stone, and march off without any apparent knowledge that he has executed a circus stunt. Some of the negroes who came to work on the canal never saw a wheelbarrow before arriving there. Upon one occasion some French negroes from Martinique were placed on a job of pick and shovel work. Three of them loaded a wheelbarrow with earth, then one of them stooped down, the other two put the wheelbarrow on his head and he walked away with it. But, with all of his inexperience, the Martinique negro proved to be the best West Indian worker on the canal. The Martinique negroes were the most picturesque of all the West Indians on the job. The women wore striking though simple costumes, bandana handkerchiefs around their heads, and bright-colored calico dresses usually caught up on one side or at the back, thus anticipating the Parisian fashion of the slit skirt by many years. A large number of the negroes lived in small tenement houses built by private capital, and oftener than not one room served the entire family. Nearly every one of the American settlements had its West Indian quarter where these buildings and the Chinese stores flourished to the exclusion of everything else. At the Pacific end of the Panama Railroad there was a suburb known as Caledonia, which was given over almost entirely to West Indian families. One could drive through there any day and see half-grown children dressed only in Eden's garb. In other parts of the canal territory one saw very few naked children except in the back streets of Colon.