xx NOTES ON LIFE OF THE AFRICAN NATIVE 199 



joke green in so-called comic weekly papers. On 

 such occasions, the mother, bringing a wide 

 experience to bear on the subject, will probably 

 tell her daughter not to be silly, and, ere long, the 

 young couple have made friends and discovered 

 that a lover's quarrel merely means the renewal of 

 love. Should the difference be of a serious nature 

 the husband will probably divorce his wife, but after 

 such an event, she does not live as a woman with a 

 lurid past. There is always another husband 

 waiting for her, and the fact of her being a divorcee 

 does not cast the slightest reflection on her 

 eligibility for remarriage. 



The native woman's appearance, apart from the 

 facial aspect which may be displeasing to the eye of 

 the white man, is certainly prepossessing, for the 

 exercise of her household duties, of grinding food, of 

 carrying water and working in the shamba, 

 develops her to physical perfection. She is, more- 

 over, if she has adopted the Mahometan faith and 

 most of the natives of Eastern and Central Africa 

 are rapidly becoming followers of the Prophet 

 scrupulously clean as to her person, washing her body 

 once or twice a day and always before retiring. 

 Like tier white sister, she takes great care of her 

 appearance : her hair and skin she keeps soft and in 

 perfect condition with the application of a little oil, 

 usually the ufuta, which is odourless and so readily 



