THEIR DRESS AND DIET. 7 



short striped-cotton petticoat. Their hair is 

 simply parted on the forehead, and descends 

 over the shoulders, braided in an elaborate and 

 becoming manner. The men wear a cotton 

 shirt, open at the neck, breeches loose at the 

 knees, (to facilitate equestrian exercises,) a 

 broad-brimmed straw hat, and shoes and bus- 

 kins of rudely-tanned leather, well adapted to 

 protect their legs from the thorny plants of 

 the country. Some of the men wear their hair 

 short ; while others have it braided into a queue 

 and pendant over the shoulders, after the man- 

 ner of the women. A large woollen rug, white 

 striped with blue, worn over the shoulders or 

 enveloping the entire person, they more ca- 

 priciously assume, and chiefly when on their 

 journeys. 



Since the character of the soil offers no in- 

 ducement to agricultural pursuits, these people 

 confine their attention to rearing cattle, which, 

 together with the cheese they prepare from the 

 milk of their herds, form the staple commodi- 

 ties of the settlement. As we had been accus* 

 tomed among the Polynesian islands, to notice 

 a race of people living almost solely on a vege- 

 table diet, so here we found another subsisting 

 as entirely upon animal food : the only vege- 

 tables they consume being maize,, (which they 

 procure from a distant part of the country,) and 



