Page:The Homes of the New World- Vol. III.djvu/125

Rh when it is not danced with beauty by beautiful or charming people! The principal lady in this case was so ugly, spite of her really magnificent apparel and fine carriage, as to remind me of a dressed-up ape, and the movements of the cavaliers were deficient in natural elasticity, which the negroes in general seemed to want.

But the great dance of the ball, a kind of wreath-dance, in which the whole company took part, amid innumerable artistic entanglements and disentanglements—the grouping and enwreathing themselves, in an infinite variety of ways with chains of artificial roses—all this was really lovely and picturesque, and was executed with exquisite precision; and if there had been a little less formality, and more natural animation, I could have believed that I beheld in it a type of civilised negro life. Those beautiful dark eyes, those splendid white teeth, in some pretty young girls especially, shone out joyously whilst they bent their heads and then rose from beneath the arches of rose-garlands.

Many of the negroes were wealthy, and one young negro was pointed out to me in the company as being possessed of property to the amount of 20,000 dollars.

The Spanish law for the West Indian colonies, los lejes de los Indios, has some excellent and just enactments, as regards the rights and the emancipation of negro slaves, which those of the American States are still deficient in, to their shame be it spoken! Their laws are purely opposed to the slave's acquisition of freedom and independence. The laws of the Spaniards favour the slaves in these respects. Here the slave is able to purchase his own freedom for the stipulated legal sum of five hundred dollars, and the judges (syndics) are commanded to watch over the rights of the slave. Here a mother may purchase the freedom of her child, before its birth, for fifteen dollars, and after its birth for double that sum. She may emancipate her child.