THROUGH THE PLEISTOCENE 19 



rather elaborate hair-dresses, and masses of metal ornaments 

 on their arms and legs. In the region where one tribe 

 dwelt all the people had their front teeth filed to sharp 

 points; it was strange to see a group of these savages, stark 

 naked, with oddly shaved heads and filed teeth, armed 

 with primitive bows and arrows, stand gravely gazing at 

 the train as it rolled into some station; and none the less 

 strange, by the way, because the locomotive was a Bald- 

 win, brought to Africa across the great ocean from our 

 own country. One group of women, nearly nude, had their 

 upper arms so tightly bound with masses of bronze or cop- 

 per wire that their muscles were completely malformed. 

 So tightly was the wire wrapped round the upper third of 

 the upper arm, that it was reduced to about one-half of 

 its normal size; and the muscles could only play, and that 

 in deformed fashion, below this unyielding metal bandage. 

 Why the arms did not mortify it was hard to say; and their 

 freedom of use was so hampered as to make it difficult to 

 understand how men or women whose whole lives are passed 

 in one or another form of manual labor could inflict upon 

 themselves such crippling and pointless punishment. 



Next morning we were in the game country, and as we 

 sat on the seat over the cow-catcher it was literally like 

 passing through a vast zoological garden. Indeed no such 

 railway journey can be taken on any other line in any other 

 land. At one time we passed a herd of a dozen or so of 

 great giraffes, cows and calves, cantering along through the 

 open woods a couple of hundred yards to the right of the 

 train. Again, still closer, four waterbuck cows, their big 

 ears thrown forward, stared at us without moving until 

 we had passed. Hartebeests were everywhere; one herd 

 was on the track, and when the engine whistled they bucked 

 and sprang with ungainly agility and galloped clear of the 

 danger. A long-tailed straw-colored monkey ran from one 

 tree to another. Huge black ostriches appeared from 

 time to time. Once a troop of impalla, close by the track, 

 took fright; and as the beautiful creatures fled we saw now 



