162 THROUGH UNKNOWN AFRICAN COUNTRIES. 
fused love into so many savage breasts, from the old Abys- 
sinian general down to the naked Adones about the Jub. 
I was enjoying a good laugh myself, looking at the natives 
hugging each other and dancing about in glee, until, finally, 
most embarrassing questions were asked. 
“ Have white women such small mouths? Is their hair 
so like the color of brass? Do they not wear a loin cloth, 
and have they no hair over their eyes? But certainly they 
are splendidly fat. And what a beautifully white and pink 
skin!” “ Have you, great white man, such a white skin, 
like the sun, all over your body?” several dusky females 
now asked me; and I rolled up my sleeves high to the 
shoulders, displaying about an inch of my arms that had 
not been browned by the sun. 
“ Magnificent!” the ladies cried. But now, like Little 
Oliver, they wanted more. And, indeed, so inquisitive the 
gentle maidens were that they came to our tents very 
early the next morning, in hopes of seeing Dodson or 
myself in our tubs. Leaving our admiring friends, how- 
ever, we set out at once after breakfast, marching at first 
some distance from the Dawa, the path leading over low, 
stony hills. But at Handudu, where we camped, we again 
touched the river bank. Here were many villages, and 
great numbers of camels and cattle, but there were also 
many poor, wild-looking natives in the woods of dhum 
palms, who lived entirely by drinking the sap of these 
trees, and eating the hard fruit. The tops of the palm- 
trees are cut off, a cup fastened so as to receive the sap as 
it flows out, and over this a cap of plaited grass is placed 
as a protection. The sap, which flows in great quantities, 
ferments in the cups, and forms an intoxicating drink. I 
found many natives subsisting almost entirely upon these 
palm-trees, occasionally getting a little change of diet by 
trapping. They wore little or no clothing whatever, and 
