AFRICAN CAMP FIRES 



By the way, it may be a good place here to remark 

 that these garments, and the patterned squares of 

 cloth worn by the women, are invariably most 

 spotlessly clean. 



These, we learned, were the Swahilis, the ruling 

 class, the descendents of the slave traders. Beside 

 them are all sorts and conditions. Your true savage 

 pleased his own fancy as to dress and personal 

 adornment. The bushmen generally shaved the 

 edges of their wool to leave a nice close-fitting 

 natural skullcap, wore a single blanket draped from 

 one shoulder, and carried a war club. The ear lobe 

 seemed always to be stretched; sometimes sufficiently 

 to have carried a pint bottle. Indeed, white marma- 

 lade jars seemed to be very popular wear. One 

 ingenious person had acquired a dozen of the sort 

 of safety pins used to fasten curtains to their rings. 

 These he had snapped into the lobes, six on a side. 



We explored for some time. One of the Swahilis 

 attached himself to us so unobtrusively that before 

 we knew it we had accepted him as guide. In that 

 capacity he realized an ideal, for he never addressed 

 a word to us, nor did he even stay in sight. We wan- 

 dered along at our sweet will, dawdling as slowly as 

 we pleased. The guide had apparently quite 

 disappeared. Look where we would we could in 

 no manner discover him. At the next corner we 



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