Note 7 — Chapter XIV · THE RICH COAST

The description given by Sir F. Treves of the dress of the negress of Martinique, sums up in a few words the salient features of the Sunday costume of her sister in Costa Rica. “The headdress,” he writes, “is very picturesque. It consists of a ‘madras,’ an ample handkerchief wound about the head turban fashion, and finished by a projecting end, which stands up like the eagle’s feather in an Indian’s hair. The color of the madras will be usually a canary yellow striped with black. The hues of the dress are bewildering. Here are a skirt of roses and a foulard of sky-blue, a gown of scarlet and yellow with a terra-cotta scarf across the breast, a dress of white striped with orange below a foulard of green, a frock of primrose spotted with red and completed by a scarf of mazarine blue. Add to this the necklace of gold beads, the heavy bracelets, the great earrings, and the ‘trembling pins’ that fix the madras, and then realize over all, the white light of a tropical moon.”7