GLIMPSES OF EAST AFRICA AND ZANZIBAR 



spears in Nairobi, and all natives coming into the 

 town must don some cloth to cover themselves, but 

 outside and on their reserves they are not so par- 

 ticular. My experience is that the less the native 

 is clothed the nicer he is, and the more modest and 

 well behaved ; they have not in the least degree 

 that sense of decency or indecency which makes a 

 white man cover himself ; their small bit of cover- 

 ing is usually to protect their lungs. Directly a 

 native begins putting on garments of civilisation he 

 gets wrong ideas with them, and smells infinitely 

 more unpleasant. The semi-civilised native is a 

 terrible person. This we found on our safaris with 

 regard to our porters. I have no patience with 

 the correspondent of one East African paper, who 

 wrote a long article desiring to see the natives en- 

 veloped in many garments, and who said how un- 

 comfortable he should feel if he met a more or less 

 undressed negro when he was walking with a lady. 

 If the lady were a decent woman and had any 

 common sense, she would become accustomed to an 

 African's way of dressing in a very short time, and 

 not notice him unless it were to admire the grandeur 

 and carriage of some well-formed young native, 

 whose cloth, ornaments and body make a beautiful 

 picture of a " study in brown ". It is noticeable 

 that the least dressed tribes always colour what 

 they wear the same as the colour of their bodies, 

 so there is no distinction between their satin-look- 



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