THE WORLD'S WONDERS. 137 



a paste by the admixture of grease, giving themselves the ap- 

 pearance of new red bricks. The only hair upon their persons 

 is a small tuft upon the crown of the head, in which they stick 

 one or more feathers. The women are generally free from hair, 

 their heads being shaved. They wear a neat little lappet, about 

 six inches long, of beads, or of small iron rings, worked like a 

 coat of mail, in lieu of a fig-leaf, and the usual tail of fine shreds 

 of leather or twine, spun from indigenous cotton, pendant be- 

 hind. Both the lappet and tail are fastened on a belt, which is 

 worn round the loins, like those in the Shir tribe ; thus the toil- 

 ette is completed at once. It would be highly useful, could they 

 only wag their tails to whisk off the flies, which are torments in 

 this country. 



The cattle are very small ; the goats and sheep are quite Lilli- 

 putian, but they generally give three at a birth, and thus mul- 

 tiply quickly. The people of the country were formerly friendly, 

 but the Khartourners pillage and murder them at discretion in 

 all directions ; thus, in revenge, they will shoot a poisoned arrow 

 at a stranger unless he is powerfully escorted. The effect of 

 the poison used for the arrow-heads is very extraordinary. A 

 man came to Baker for medical aid ; five months before he had 

 been wounded by a poisoned arrow in the leg, below the calf, 

 and the entire foot had been eaten away by the action of the 

 poison. The bone rotted through just above the ankle, and the 

 foot dropped off. The most violent poison is the produce of 

 the root of a tree, whose milky juice yields a resin that is 

 smeared upon the arrow. It is brought from a great distance, 

 from some country far west of Gondokoro. The juice of the 

 species of euphorbia, common in these countries, is also used 

 for poisoning arrows. Boiled to the consistence of tar, it is then 

 smeared upon the blade. The action of the poison is to corrode 

 the flesh, which loses its fibre, and drops away like jelly, after 

 severe inflammation and swelling. The arrows are barbed with 

 diabolical ingenuity ; some are arranged with poisoned heads that 

 fit into sockets ; these detach from the arrow on an attempt to 

 withdraw them ; thus the barbed blade, thickly smeared with 



