378 



THE LIVING RACES OF MANKIND 



above the knee. The coast tribes wear a long shirt with the drawers. The women have a 

 wide-sleeved chemise, tied round the waist by a narrow girdle, and a long tobe or sheet of 

 cotton-cloth wrapped round the body. 



The ornaments of the women are large studs of wood or metal in the ears, massive silver 

 bracelets and anklets with silver bells, necklaces of blue- and gold-coloured beads, and a string 

 of charms. They generally carry a twirling fan. The women paint extensively; they remove 

 the hair from the eyebrows and mark there a line of dark blue; the cheeks are coloured to 

 the eyes with a rouge made of ochre and fat. 



The women usually wear the hair in rows of small curls; and the men devote much 

 attention to their hair-dressing, frequently varying the arrangement. According to Harris, 

 "many hours are daily expended in arranging the mop into various and quaint devices. At 

 one time it is worn hanging in long clustering ringlets over the cheeks and neck, at another 

 frizzed into round matted protuberances; to-day fancifully tucked and trimmed into small rows 

 of minute curls like a counsellor's peruke, and to-morrow boldly divided into four large 

 lotus-leaved compartments." The hair is, however, sometimes worn quite short. 



The old weapons are a curved, sickle-shaped sword, spear, and shield; but firearms have 

 been introduced, and are now the national weapon, at least in the army. Slings and stones 

 are used in war; thro wing-clubs are used for hunting small game, while lions are killed with 

 the spear. Leopards are trained for hunting antelope. 



The architecture varies greatly. The simplest huts are circular frameworks of twigs 

 plastered with mud. In the Alpine regions of Simen they 

 are of thick thatch surrounded by a thorn fence. In Sanafe 

 the houses are long and rectangular. The better class of houses 

 and those of most of the -towns are built of stone cemented 

 by mortar; such houses are circular, built in two storeys, and 

 are all of stone, thatched with straw. Some of the older 

 buildings are finer than any now built by the native Abyssinians. 

 Thus in Gondar, the chief town in the province of Amhara, 

 are the remains of a seventeenth-century fortress which has 

 been called "the Windsor Castle of Ethiopia." This, however, 

 was built by an European architect of red sandstone, with 

 battlements of black basalt, and contains a high central keep 

 and a number of round towers connected by long galleries. 



The most remarkable dwellings in Abyssinia are the mono- 

 lithic temples, which are hewn out of single blocks of rock. 

 At Lalibala there are several churches cut in blocks of basalt; 

 and at Sokota, the chief town in the province of Wag, is 

 a similar church in granite. Monolithic columns occur in 

 various parts of the country, as in Wag, and at Axum, where 

 there is one 83 feet in height. 



Agriculture and the industries are neglected and primitive, 

 though better conducted than in most of the Negro tribes. 

 As with the Arabs and the Gallas, the fields are prepared for 

 sowing by a wooden plough, armed with an iron knife or lance- 

 head, and drawn by oxen. The main products grown are 

 cereals, including barley. The grain is eaten as porridge, 

 or in flour cakes or unleavened bread. Raw meat is the 

 favourite food, and it is preferred when eaten warm from the 

 slaughtered beast and flavoured with its gall. As is known 

 from the accounts of Bruce, confirmed by later travellers, steaks 

 are cut from the flanks of live cattle, and the wounds are 

 AN ABYSSINIAN GIRL. healed. Beer brewed from barley and mead from wild honey 



