windows and open doors of the cafe. An
important comparsa of Congo negroes of both sexes is passing in
procession along the street. They have just been paying their respects
to no less a personage than his Excellency the Governor of Santiago, in
the long reception-room of whose palace, and in whose august presence
they have dared to dance! The troupe is headed by a brace of blacks, who
carry banners with passing strange devices, and a dancing mace-bearer.
These are followed by a battalion of colonels, generals, and
field-marshals, in gold-braided coats and gilded cocked-hats. Each wears
a broad sash of coloured silk, a sword and enormous spurs. These are not
ordinary, masqueraders be it known, but grave subjects of his sombre
majesty King Congo, the oldest and blackest of all the blacks: the
lawfully appointed sovereign of the coloured community. It seems to form
part of the drilling of his majesty's military to march with a
tumble-down, pick-me-up step, for as each member of the corps moves, he
is for ever losing his balance and finding his equilibrium; but whether
on the present occasion this remarkable step proceeds from loyalty or
liquor, I cannot say. In the rear of his Congo Majesty's officers are a
crowd of copper-coloured amazons, in pink muslins trimmed with flowers
and tinsel, who march trippingly in files of four, at well-measured
distances, and form a connecting link with each other by means of their
pocket-handkerchiefs held by the extreme corners. Each damsel carries a
lighted taper of brown wax, and a tin rattle, which she jingles as she
moves. The whole procession terminates in a military band, composed of
musicians whose hard work and little pay are exhibited in their
uniforms, which are limited to buttonless shirts and brief
unmentionables. Their instruments are a big drum, hand tambours, huge
cone-shaped basket rattles, a bent bamboo harp with a solitary string,
and the indispensable gueiro or nutmeg-grater. There is harmony in this
outline of an orchestra, let him laugh who may. No actual tune is there,
but you have all the lights and shadows--the skeleton, so to speak--of a
tune, and if your imagination be musical, that will suffice to supply
the melody. The peculiar measure adopted in the negro drum-music, and
imitated in 'La Danza' and in church-bell chiming, has an origin which
those who have a taste for natural history will do well to make a note
of. There is an insect--I forget the name, but you