XV.] ORNAMENTS AND ARMS. 197 



When I called, lie was busy spinning cotton with another April, 

 man, while their wives and daugliters sat near picking the seeds i^'^'*- 

 out of freshly gathered pods. The fibre was laid in heaps by 

 the side of the chief and his friend, who — spindles in hand — 

 were making it into yarn. Their wooden spindles were about 

 fourteen inches long and half an inch in diameter, with a piece 

 of curved wood as a weight, half an inch from the top, where 

 a small wire hook was fixed. The cotton was first worked be- 

 tween the forefinger and thumb into a sort of rough tape about 

 half a yard long, and then hooked to the spindle, which was 

 rolled along the right thigh, to give it a rapid spinning motion. 

 The yarn was held in the left hand, the spindle hanging from 

 it ; and the right forefinger and thumb were used to prevent 

 any irregularities in the size of the thread. As soon as a length 

 was spun, it was unhooked and wound round the spindle, and 

 more cotton was prepared, hooked on, and spun in the same 

 manner. The yarn turned out by these means, though coarse, 

 is fairly strong, and wonderfully regular in size. It is after- 

 ward wound on sticks, about four feet long, used as shuttles in 

 weaving. 



The profile of the people was good, their noses being Eo- 

 man ; but all have the spreading alee nasi. The heads of some 

 were completely covered with sofi or pipe -stem beads, each 

 strung on a separate tuft of hair, an arrangement which must 

 be very uncomfortable, and is not at all prepossessing, having 

 too much the appearance of scales. 



Those who can not afford beads imitate the fashion by mak- 

 ing their wool into blobs, and greasing it until one can not de- 

 tect the separate fibres. Grass leglets and bracelets made from 

 the upindha (brab), very neatly twisted or plaited, were very 

 commonly worn. Their bows were provided with a fi-inge of 

 long hair at one or both ends, and were sewed over, besides 

 having the spare string wound round them. Arrows were of 

 various lengths, not feathered or poisoned, and all knives were 

 shaped like spear-heads. 



The people had at one time grown a considerable amount of 

 corn, but the Watuta killed most of the men, and a few of that 

 tribe, who still remained in the jungle hereabouts — neither cul- 

 tivating nor building huts — subsisted entirely by the chase and 



