He passed two or three diminutive cabins, all as much alike as bee-hives.

Each had its squat veranda and thatched or clapboarded roof held in place by weight-poles ranged in roughly parallel rows, and each had the face of the wall under its veranda neatly daubed with a grayish stucco made of mud and lime.

You may see such houses today in some remote parts of the creole country of Louisiana.
As Rene passed along he spoke with a gay French freedom to the dames and lasses who chanced to be visible.

His air would be regarded as violently brigandish in our day; we might even go so far as to think his whole appearance comical.

His jaunty cap with a tail that wagged as he walked, his short trousers and leggins of buckskin, and his loose shirt-like tunic, drawn in at the waist with a broad belt, gave his strong figure just the dash of wildness suited to the armament with which it was weighted.