A Queer Race: The Story of a Strange People — page 102: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

A QUEER RACE. 69 chin, bespoke at once intelligence, high courage, and strength of will. Yet, kind as Nature had been to the island queen, she evidently belonged to the same queer race as her people. Though her face was white (comparatively, for she was a decided brunette), the lower parts of her neck and throat were hued with bronze; so also were her arms and one of her feet; for, hke the maidens in the veranda, she wore neither sleeves nor stockings. But as I had already found out, there was a marked difference between the piebald of the women and the pie- bald of the men. As touching the latter, the copper- colored spots were, so to speak, stamped on the white ground, and clearly defined; but with the women it was otherwise; the two shades blended into each other; you could not say where the one ended and the other began, and the more obtrusive color was less prominent and glar- ing. It should be observed, too, that none of the adjec- tives I have used for the purpose describe this color ex- actly. I have called it ‘‘ red” and ‘‘ coppery;” it might with eanal accuracy be defined as ‘‘ cinnamon,” as all three, in fact;.for the piebalds vary as widely in the color of their epidermis as the so-called white races of Europe and North America. As for Queen Mab, though she cer- tainly looked dizarre, I thought then, and I think still, that the peculiar tint of her neck rendered her all the more striking and picturesque. At any rate, it made an admirable setting for the brilliant pearl necklace which adorned her throat and the white and crimson orchids which she wore at her breast. «¢ Excuse me for looking at you so curiously,” she said, after our mutual inspection had lasted a couple of min- utes, ‘‘ but you are the first really white man and the first Englishman I have seen.” «We are all English,” put in Fane, abruptly—almost rudely, indeed. ‘< We are pleased to think so, and we are of English blood; but you cannot deny that it is rather mixed. There is a good deal of difference between you and Mr, Erle, for instance.” ‘You are right. He is not quite so tall, nor, perhaps, quite so strong. He is near-sighted, and hard of hear- GEomichboo ‘@ <= (€ @)