240 



THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



toward cacli otlier with an excessive free- 

 dom. The women, in this respect, arc 

 very different to the modest and retiring 

 women of the Niam-niam, and are, beyond 

 measure, obtrusive and familiiir. Their in- 

 quisitiveness was a daily nuisance : they 

 watched me into the depth of the woods, 

 they pestered me by flocking round my 

 tent, and it was a difficult matter to get a 

 bath without being stared at. Toward their 

 husbands they exhibit the highest degree 

 of independence. The position in the house- 

 hold occupied by the men was illustrated by 

 the reply which would be made, if they were 

 solicited to sell any thing as a curiosity : 

 ' Oh, ask my wife ; it is hers.' Their gen- 

 eral demeanor surprised me very much when 

 I considered the comparative advance of 

 their race in the arts of civilization. Their 

 immodesty far surpassed any thing that I 

 had observed in the very lowest of the negro 

 tribes, and contrasted most unfavorably with 

 the sobriety of the Bongo women, who are 

 submissive to their husbands, and yet not 

 servile. The very scantiness of the cloth- 

 ing of the Monbuttoo women has no excuse. 

 Carved benches are the ordinary seats of the 

 men, but the women generally use a one- 

 legged stool ! While the Dinka women, 

 leaving perfect nudity as the prerogative of 

 their husbands, are modestly clothed with 

 skins ; while the Mittoo and Bongo women 

 wear their girdle of foliage, and the Kiam- 

 niam women their apron of liides, the women 

 of the Monbuttoo where the men are more 

 scrupulously and fully clothed than any of 

 the nations I came across throughout my 

 journeys go almost entirely naked." 



' But, as every page and paragraph of 

 this work is of absorbing interest, we are 

 weary of the mental conflict as to whieh 

 shall have place in our limited space. We 

 will conclude with the following : 



" I always made a rule of eating alone. 

 A solitary European, as he proceeds farther 

 and farther from home, may see his old as- 

 sociations shrink to a minimum ; but, so 

 much the more, with pertinacious conser- 

 vatism, will he cling to the surviving rem- 

 nants of his own superiority. Nothing can 

 ever divest him of the thought as to how 

 he may maintain the prerogative, which he 

 takes for granted, that he is a being of some 

 higher order. Many a misanthrope, in his 

 disgust at the shady side of our modern 

 culture, may imagine that, to a traveler, in 

 his intercourse with the children of Nature, 

 the thousand necessities of daily life must 

 seem but trifles vain and empty, to be dis- 



pensed with without a sigh. Such a one 

 may fancy that the bonds which fasten him 

 to the world of civilization are weak, and 

 all waiting to be rent asunder as soon as 

 Nature is left to assert her unfettered rights ; 

 but, from experience, I can assure him that 

 the truth is very different. With the fear 

 of degenerating ever before liis eyes, the 

 wanderer from the realms of civilization 

 will surely fix his gaze almost with devo- 

 tion on the few objects of our Western cult- 

 ure that remain to him, which (however 

 trivial they are in themselves) become to 

 him symbols little less than sacred. Tables 

 and chairs, knives and forks, bedding, and 

 even pocket-handkerchiefs, will assume an 

 importance that could never have been an- 

 ticipated, and it is hardly too much to aver 

 that they will rise to a share in his affec- 

 tions." 



FtTNGI : THEIR NATURE AND UsES. Bv M. 



C. Cooke and M. J. Berkeley. New 

 York : D. Appleton & Co. " Interna- 

 tional Scientific Series," No. XV. Pp. 

 800. Price, $1.50. 



A VERY interesting tract of the vegetable 

 kingdom, which has hitherto received but 

 little popular attention, is here reported 

 upon by two of the most eminent English 

 authorities upon the subject. In all that 

 relates to those numerous and curious forms 

 of vegetable growth called fungi, in their 

 familiar forms, as seen by everybody in 

 field and forest, and in their still more won- 

 derful microscopic varieties. Rev. M. J. 

 Berkeley, the venerable Rector of Sibbertoft, 

 is perhaps the first authority in the world. 

 Though a hard-working clergyman, he has 

 found time to master and to extend one of 

 the most interesting provinces of botany 

 hitherto as obscure as it is extensive. He 

 engaged to produce a book for the " Inter- 

 national Series " upon this subject, but, find- 

 ing, from the multiplicity of bis engage- 

 ments and his uncertain health, that he 

 could not accomplish it satisfactorily, ho as- 

 sociated with himself the next ablest man 

 of England in this field, Dr. M. C. Cooke, who 

 has done the principal work, which now 

 appears under the critical editorship of Dr. 

 Berkeley himself. Readers who desire to 

 become acquainted with the subject-matter 

 of this volume, and to form some general 

 idea of its scope and importance, are re- 

 ferred to the opening article of the present 

 number of the Monthly, and, if its perusal 



