148 UNDER THE AFRICAN SUN 



10 P.M. to 6 A.M. there shall be a cessation of drum-beating and 

 turmoil, in order to enable the non-participators in the revelry 

 to sleep ; other musical attractions are provided, such as 

 horns, gourds, rattles, castanets, and triangles, and girls and 

 women singing. Then there are the open-air dances, circling 

 around the musicians, until the clouds of dust cause the choking 

 and perspiring dancers to rest for a while and to refresh them- 

 selves at the gourds of native beer. Custom has fixed what the 

 wedding-guest, according to his rank, has to contribute in cash 

 towards the expenses of the wedding entertainment ; the private 

 soldier pays about a tenth or a twentieth of what the officer 

 has to pay. 



The Soudanese ladies plait their woolly curls into short, 

 close-lying tresses reaching to the nape of the neck. They 

 wear very few ornaments ; this one a bracelet, that one a 

 necklace. Some wear ear-rings, others a sort of button in the 

 outer cartilage of one of the nostrils. Their dress is very 

 simple, consisting of a single piece of cotton cloth of sufficient 

 length, deftly thrown around the body. Some, in accord- 

 ance with Mohammedan precepts, will cover also head and 

 face. A graceful and common squatting posture is to drop 

 on the knees and sit on the heels. 



The Soudanese hut consists of a circular low wall of reeds 

 and grass, with a conical grass-thatched roof. The same open- 

 ing serves as door, window, and exit for the smoke. The whole 

 family lives in one and the same hut with all its possessions, 

 including poultry, sheep, and goats. The opening into the hut 

 is so low that one has to stoop to enter, and the hut itself is 

 so dark, that even in day-time I have had to strike a light to 

 see the patient I was called to visit. Sometimes the smoke 

 from the wood-fire which is usually in the centre of the hut, 

 has been so unbearable, that I have had from time to time to 

 get into the outer air to rest my aching eyes and throat. The 

 household effects are but few : a light wooden couch, a low 

 wooden settle, a small wooden mortar, a long pole serving as 

 a pestle to pound dried casava-root into mohogo flour, grind- 

 stones to grind Kaftre-corn into matama flour, some earthen 

 vessels, a gourd or two as water-jugs, and a few grass-mats 

 and grass-platters. 



In a typical scene in a Soudanese village, the lady will be 

 seen sitting on a low settle at the door of her hut and super- 



