Henry S. Whitehead

“ By every right and custom of West Indian society, Mr. Da Silva was a colored gentleman, whose social status was as clear-cut and definite as a cameo.
These islands are largely populated by persons like Mr. Da Silva. Despite the difference in their status from what it would be in North America, in the islands it has its advantages,–among them that of logic. To the West Indian mind, a man whose heredity is seven-eighths derived from gentry, as like as not with authentic coats-of-arms, is entitled to be treated accordingly. ”

“ He heard, though vaguely, of the laborer's belief that Sven Garik, who had long ago gone back to his home in Sweden, and Garrity, one of the smaller planters now on the island, were "wolves!" Lycanthropy, animal-metamorphosis, it appeared, formed part of this strange texture of local belief.
Mr. Jaffray Da Silva was one-eighth African. He was, therefore, by island usage, "colored," which is as different from being "black" in the West Indies as anything that can be imagined. Mr. Da Silva had been educated in the continental European manner. ”

“ They shift and 'weave,' as a full-blooded African does–standing on one foot and resting the other–you've noticed that, of course–or scratching the supporting ankle with the toes of the other foot. They do not swing in the sense that they seem to be swung on a rope,–that is not what it means; they do not twirl about. But they do–always–face the oncomer. . . .
"I walked on, slowly, and passed them; and they kept their faces to me as they always do. I'm used to that....
"I went up the steps of the house to the front gallery, and found Mrs. Iversen waiting for me. ”

“ Mr. Lee, when I looked back, down the steps, after what must have been a fifth of a second's inattention, that little old black woman who had been huddled up there on the lowest step, apparently sound asleep, was gone. She had vanished utterly–and, Mr. Lee. a little white dog, about the size of a French poodle, was bounding up the steps toward me. With every bound, a step at a leap, the dog increased in size. ”

“ The planters and storekeepers had smiled, though with varying degrees of intensity, and had replied that the Danes had invented Jumbees, to keep their estate-laborers indoors after nightfall, thus ensuring a proper night's sleep for them, and minimizing the depredations upon growing crops. ”

“ Lee, that he had put feet on his Jumbees mostly for the sake of a convenient rime,–poetic license.' The Hanging Jumbees have no feet. It is one of their peculiarities. Their legs stop at the ankles. They have abnormally long, thin legs–African legs. They are always black, you know. Their feet–if they have them–are always hidden in a kind of mist that lies along the ground where-ever one sees them. ”