led _same-sames_ or "talakas," and which were very
fashionable. Besides, with these jewels, worn in profusion, the
wealthy people of the place looked like traveling shrines.

Again, if nature gave the natives teeth, was it not that they could
pull out the upper and lower incisors, file them in points, and curve
them in sharp fangs like the fangs of a rattlesnake? If she has placed
nails at the end of the fingers, is it not that they may grow so
immoderately that the use of the hand is rendered almost impossible?
If the skin, black or brown, covers the human frame, is it not so as
to zebra it by "temmbos" or tattooings representing trees, birds,
crescents, full moons, or waving lines, in which Livingstone thought
he could trace the designs of ancient Egypt? This tattooing, done by
fathers, is practised by means of a blue matter introduced into the
incisions, and is "stereotyped" point by point on the bodies of the
children, thus establishing to what tribe or to what family they
belong. The coat-of-arms must be engraved on the breast, when it
cannot be painted on the panel of a carriage.

Such are the native fashions in ornament. In regard to garments
properly so called, they are summed up very easily; for the men,
an apron of antelope leather, reaching to the knees, or perhaps a
petticoat of a straw material of brilliant colors; for the women, a
belt of pearls, supporting at the hips a green petticoat, embroidered
in silk, ornamented with glass beads or coury; sometimes they wear
garments made of "lambba," a straw material, blue, black, and yellow,
which is much prized by the natives of Zanzibar.

These, of course, are the negroes of the best families. The others,
merchants, and slaves, are seldom clothed. The women generally act as
porters, and reach the market with enormous baskets on their back,
which they hold by means of a leathern strap passed over the forehead.
Then, their places being taken, and the merchandise unpacked, they
squat in their empty baskets.

The astonishing fertility of the country causes the choice alimentary
produces to be brought to this "lakoni." There were quantities of the
rice which returns a hundred per cent., of the maize, which, in three
crops in eight months, produces two hundred per cent., the sesamum,
the pepper of Ouroua, stronger than the Cayenne, allspice, tapioca,
sorghum, nutmegs, salt, and palm-oil.

Hundreds of goats were gathered there, hogs, sheep without wool,
evidently