A Spaniard can't murder a man comfortably, if he has not his crucifix
about him.
They were, collectively, the most daring, intrepid, Salvator Rosa
looking men I had ever seen. Most of them were above the middle size,
and the spread of their shoulders, the grace with which their arms were
hung, and finely developed muscles of the chest and neck, the latter
exposed completely by the folding back of their shirt collars, cut large
and square, after the Spanish fashion, beat the finest boat's--crew we
could muster all to nothing. Some of them were of mixed blood, that is,
the cross between the European Spaniard and the aboriginal Indian of
Cuba, a race long since sacrificed on tile altar of Mammon, the white
man's god.
Their hair, generally speaking, was long, and curled over the forehead
black and glossy, or hung down to their shoulders in ringlets, that a
dandy of the second Charles's time would have given his little finger
for. The forehead in most was high and broad, and of a clear olive, the
nose straight, springing boldly from the brow, the cheeks oval, and the
mouth--every Spaniard has a beautiful mouth, until he spoils it with the
beastly cigar, as far as his well--formed firm lips can be spoiled; but
his teeth he generally does destroy early in life. Take the whole,
however, and deduct for the teeth, I had never seen so handsome a set of
men; and I am sure no woman, had she been there, would have gainsayed
me.
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