Note 97 — Chapter V

The French have dubbed these officers Racadère, for what reason I know not. The English of old times called them “Half-heads,” from their shaving off a moiety of their wool; in those days they wore a demi-dozen strings of human teeth over the shoulder to the knee. Now few can display such decoration. Dr. M‘Leod appropriately termed them the mortal messengers, in contradistinction to the immortals, sent, as will presently be explained, to the Shades.