r>28 THE TROPICAL WORLD. 



With each man is buried alive a male and a female slave, the 

 former holding a bill-liook wherewith to cut fuel for his master 

 in the cold death-world, and the latter, who is seated upon a 

 little stool, supports his head in her lap. 



Among the negroes of Bonny, on the coast of Guinea, the 

 wants of the dead are provided for in a less inhuman manner. 

 The wealthy oil-merchant is interred under the threshold of his 

 door, and a small round opening left in tlie groimd leads to the 

 head of the corpse. On feast days larg-e quantities of rum are 

 poured into this opening to gratify the thirst of the deceased 

 and give him his share of the good things of this earth, for it 

 is supposed that in the kind of spirits he still retains the same 

 predilection for spirituous enjoyments which he frequently 

 testified during life. The medicine men invariably attend at 

 these interesting ceremonies, and largely participate in the 

 libations offered to the dead. 



Throughout all Negro land we find, more or less, the custom 

 so prevalent among other barbarous nations, of paintino' or 

 tattooing the body, of distending the ears, of dressing the hair 

 in a ridiculous manner, or of wearing an extravagant quantity 

 of worthless, trinkets ; but the Manganja, a negro tribe inliabit- 

 ing the banks of the Shire, have adopted the same wonderful 

 ornament, if such it may be called, which so hideously distorts 

 the Botocude physiognomy. 



The middle of the upper lip of the girls is pierced close to 

 the septum of the nose, and a small pin inserted to prevent 

 the puncture closing up. After it has healed, the pin is taken 

 out and a larger one is pressed into its place, and so on 

 successively for weeks and months and years. The process of 

 increasing the size of the lip goes on till its capacity becomes 

 so great that a ring of two inches in diameter can be introduced 

 with ease. The poorer classes make the pelele — as this absurd 

 instrument of disfigurement is called — of hollow or of solid 

 bamboo, but the wealthier of ivory or tin. The tin pelele is 

 often made in the form of a small dish ; the ivory one is not 

 unlike a napkin ring. No woman ever appears in public without 

 the pelele, except in times of mourning for the ' dead. The 

 Manganjas no doubt see beauty in the upper lip projecting two 

 inches beyond the tip of the nose, but to the rest of the world 

 it is frightfully ugly. When an old wearer of a hollow bamboo- 



