There were the guanas, too, in abundance, with
their mouths sewed up to prevent their biting; these are excellent
food, although bearing so near a resemblance to the alligator, and
its diminutive European representative, the harmless lizard. Muscovy
ducks, parrots, monkeys, pigeons, and fish. Pine apples abounded,
oranges, pomegranates, limes, Bavarias, plantains, love apples,
Abbogada pears (better known by the name of subaltern's butter), and
many other fruits, all piled in heaps, were to be had at a low price.
Such was the stock of a New Providence market.
[Footnote A: Lyttleton's "Dialogues of the Dead."]
Of the human species, buyers and vendors, there were black, brown and
fair; from the fairest skin, with light blue eyes, and flaxen hair, to
the jet-black "Day and Martin" of Ethiopia; from the loveliest form
of Nature's mould, to the disgusting squaw, whose flaccid mammae hung
like inverted bottles to her girdle, or are extended over her shoulder
to give nourishment to the little imp perched on her back; and here
the urchin sits the live long day, while the mother performs all the
drudgery of the field, the house, or the market.
The confusion of Babel did not surpass the present gabble of a West
India market. The loud and everlasting chatter of the black women, old
and young (for black ladies _can_ talk as well as white ones); the
screams of children, parrots, and monkeys; black boys and girls, clad
_a la Venus_, white teeth, red lips, black skins, and elephant legs,
formed altogether a scene well worth looking at; and now, since the
steamers have acquired so much velocity, I should think would not be
an unpleasant lounge for the fastidious _ennuye_ of France or England.
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