She stood before me in all the voluminous splendor of the remarkable cotter and kerchief, the dress and bandana, of Surinam. Even as she spoke she crammed into her bosom a little parcel made up of articles which Yoopie, the black cook, had hastily procured for her: a bit of bread, some salt sprinkled upon it, a burned match laid on top, the whole wrapped in a scrap of paper.

Mystified, I defended myself. "But I only said you were the handsomest thing in town."

"Yes, Mevrouw." Her English gave out, and the little white woman, act

enemy is likely to cast the evil eye upon her. So she had to make a charm to wear against obeah-to prevent witchcraft."

I started to inquire what virtue to defeat this form of ancient voodoo lay in the combination of burned match, the staff of life, salt, and wood-pulp, but I was silenced by a warning glance. In this land of Dutch Guiana superstition holds the reins. Excite distrust, and you won't be able to find even a laundress. Full of much more important questions, I forbore.

Ensconced in a tiny inn, I was promoting a private inquiry in Paramaribo. Lest your geography may have

gone a bit lame, a crutch for your assistance! Paramaribo is capital, and in fact the only city, of Holland's large colony on the mainland of South America, on the map the central of the three patches which have the deceptive appearance of having been bitten out of Brazil by European powers.

It has been generally forgotten that by the treaty of Westminster in 1674 England swapped the southern half of her great undeveloped province of British Guiana with the Netherlands in friendly exchange for clear title to Dutch settlements in what is now the United States. If the Dutch had retained control of Nieuw Amsterdam, or New York, there would have been in Surinam no costume of fascinating colors and distinctive character more than two hundred years old and quite comparable with the peasant costumes of Europe. Neither would there have been head-kerchiefs steeped in the folk-lore of generations. The AngloSaxon's pace of living seems to kill out the quaint customs maintained among more leisurely folk.

Of course England's bargain was a bad one, since she soon lost New York, while Holland still retains her possessions. Minded, however, to see what the canny Dutch had acquired, I voyaged to Surinam. Measuring by the marvelous natural resources, I concluded that Holland made a much better deal than she even yet appreciates, for she still knows this great territory so little that it remains a wild frontier, the mere government of which until recently drained her exchequer annually of about half a million dollars. Yet when I remarked the mountainous negresses in the blaz

ing glory of every variety of cotter and kerchief, a host of gaunt Hindus with much beturbaned heads and naked legs, many stunted Japanese in white cabayas (jackets), and colorful sarongs used as skirts, straight-haired, nearly red Indians, and barbaric wild negroes of the bush, I knew that the human resources of Surinam exceed in interest its treasures of land and water.

Most commanding of all at first glance were the cottermisses, wearers of the cotter. You remember ancient illustrations of hoop-skirted, much bepetticoated Dutch vrouws? When the Hollanders first came to Surinam in the seventeenth century, great ladies dressed in this fashion. Their slaves envied deeply. Unable to afford hoops and rich fabrics, they achieved a somewhat similar effect by using great quantities of cotton cloth of the loudest colors and patterns, upholstery designs in every raw, striking tone.

To walk under the great mahoganytrees behind a cottermisse and watch her voluminously puffed-out, stiffly starched figure bob lightly along like a cork on a stream is a peculiarly beguiling pastime. No matter how thin the face, arms, and ankles, her body appears to be monstrously fat. 'Gusta, as amiable as she was pretty, became my walking primer in taki-taki, common speech of negroes and Indians. It is made up of degenerated, but often recognizable, English, Dutch, Portuguese, and French words, with a smaller number of Indian and African origin. She promised to show me her collection of handkerchiefs and to demonstrate how the cotter was put on.

In her negligée she slipped into my room one afternoon. With confident

African grace and sureness she balanced on her head a wide basket-tray upon which were piled a great number of stiffly starched bandanas, each a yard square when unfolded. Those kerchiefs were merely a few from 'Gusta's hope chest. She had three hundred accumulated for her trousseau, which contains little but such millinery. Cotters are expensive; one is satisfied with two or three at a time. Bandanas cost only half a guilder or so. When one has a job, one buys a new head-scarf every week. Besides, old ones are never discarded. "All the girls," 'Gusta said, "have kerchiefs their grandmothers embroidered."

Yoopie brought in what appeared to be an enormous pile of cardboardstiff clothing: three white petticoats, two cotter skirts, two cotter jackets, and three flattish bolsters about four by thirty inches, stuffed with straw. Each skirt was four yards around and no less than six feet long, built for the stature, it would seem, of females of Brobdingnag. One cotter was merely to be shown, and the other to be put

on.

Negligée discarded, 'Gusta first placed one of the bolsters-a "rat" for the body similar to that which white women wore not long ago under the hair on top of her chemise, just above the hips. Over this was fastened one of the white petticoats. Its extra length settled about her feet. Yoopie handed her a tape, and 'Gusta tied it tightly just below the rat. Then she pulled the slack up above this tape until she had a great puff around her middle, and the bottom of the skirt hung free from the ground. Placing a second rat above the puff,

she arranged the second petticoat over it in similar full pannier. The third bolster came far up under her arms like a life-preserver-a life-destroyer in that tropical, humid climate.

Over the third petticoat, also puffed, went the cotter-skirt, treated in the same way. Naturally, her elbows angled sharply, uncomfortably out from her body. Yet she would have been infuriated by pity; Dutch Guiana styles dictate the silhouette of a hogshead for the fashionable. No torture from padding is worth notice. Slack females occasionally trust the shadowproof starchiness of the cotter to conceal the absence of some of these petticoats, but real quality cottermisses would not be caught alive without every one.

Donning a marvelous short-sleeved butterfly jacket of perfect circular cut, from the back of which, like misplaced antennæ, dangled two long, useless cotton tapes for decoration, 'Gusta put on a crisp head-kerchief, and was about to finish off the toilet of a black beauty by adorning herself with moy-moys (pretty knickknacks of jewelry) when I almost ruined the afternoon by my well intended compliment.

Reassured that the charm in her bosom would avert the evil eye, she adjusted immense gold loops in her ears, stuck a set of garnet pins and matching brooch in sundry locations, fastened several strings of beads about her plump throat, and slipped eight or ten bracelets over her hands. Tinkling like a sleigh at every movement, with a liberality which proved that she had never paid for my brand, she happily doused herself with the toilet water I offered.

For this occasion she had chosen a kerchief of no relation whatever to the brilliant color and prominent pattern of her cotter. I inquired if the bandana was not supposed to match, and thereby tapped an unsuspected reservoir of folk-lore.

Town topics, you will admit, are not worn as millinery in the United States or Europe, yet in Surinam the headgear of black and near-black females is decorated profusely with symbols of situations or scandals of Paramaribo past and present. Striking bits of spicy colonial history walk about on the heads of mammies, maids, and piccaninnies. News still runs largely from tongue to tongue in Dutch Guiana. Paramaribo has no newspaper worthy of the name; in this land of rumor and tradition formal events, jokes, and backstairs gossip have been crudely recorded in the kerchief.

'Gusta was going later to see her grandmother, and the head-rag she selected had to do with the recent birth of her grandmother's sixth grandchild. It was known as the family kerchief, and its design consists of an embroidered circle surrounded by a number of little offspring dots. In the old days when her grandmother was a slave-human bondage supposedly ended in Surinam about the same time as ours-all kerchiefs were decorated by needlework. Now many of them are printed, storekeepers transmitting old and new designs to manufacturers in Holland. The circle in the family kerchief is primarily the symbol of marriage. For a wedding there is a simple head-scarf with a design of a plain gold ring on a white ground. On another, appropriate to

Taking a new kerchief, she began deft manipulations. A thousand pins went into it to secure a fold or a twist here, a twirky end there, a rabbit's ear behind, with not a knot or stitch in the whole creation. She was less than five minutes completing it. Others followed, boat-shaped, square, round, petal-like, and triangular, one being peaked like Fuji-yama. An etiquette has grown up about the styles of "tying." Sixteen ways appropriate to church, funeral, party, or wedding are in common use. She even showed me, fearfully, the Aspasia tie, a wild-looking, deeply significant affair. Yoopie hid her face while 'Gusta arranged it.

"A woman wears this only when she is determined to be revenged," 'Gusta almost whispered. "When she has vowed to work obeah on her enemy, she goes to the obeah-doctor and gets instructions. As soon as she makes ready, she ties her kerchief Aspasia fashion. If she goes into the market, the place will be stark empty in no time. Everybody is afraid she will cast the evil eye on them and awful misfortune will follow. My aunt is in trouble now. The obeah-man is with her."

"What is he like?" I asked.