The English like their Niggers very, very black, and as their
Niggers are English they know how to gratify the national
preference: such a spread of scarlet lips over half the shining
sable face is known nowhere else in nature or art; and it must
have been in despair of rivalling their fellow-minstrels that the
small American troupe we saw at Aberystwyth went to the opposite
extreme and frankly appeared as the White Neegurs. At Llandudno
the blackness of the Niggers was absolute, so that it almost
darkened the day as they passed our lodging, along the crescent
of the beach on their way to their open-air theatre beyond it.
They were followed by a joyous retinue of boys and girls,
tradesmen's apprentices, donkeys, bath-chairs, and all the
movable gladness of the watering-place, to the music of their
banjos and the sound of their singing. They were going to a fold
of the foot-hills called the Happy Valley, bestowed on the public
for such pleasures by the local nobleman whose title is given to
a principal street, and to other points and places, I suppose out
of the public pride and gratitude.
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