246 EAMBLES OF A NATUEALIST. [Ch. XV. 



fascinating. Their hair, which is black, straight, and 

 glossy, is shaved off the forehead, giving them a commanding 

 look; but is allowed to grow long behind, and usually 

 gathered up into a knot. Their dress, when they indulge in 

 any, is highly picturesque ; but they not unfrequently wear 

 nothing beyond a linen cloth around the loins. But when 

 they do dress it is either in dazzling white, or white com- 

 bined with some bright colour, particularly scarlet; a 

 capacious white mantle, twisted in a complicated manner 

 around the whole body, and surmounted with a white or a 

 scarlet turban. They usually go barefoot, but sometimes 

 wear wooden sandals with a button inserted between the 

 great and second toe; or large, purple leather slippers, 

 trodden down behind and turning up in front in a long 

 curved poiut. 



The Kling women are dark beauties, finely made, and 

 dressed in flowing robes, which conceal the whole figure 

 down to the feet, but leave the arms bare to the shoulder. 

 Their dress sits on them gracefully, and their ornaments 

 give them an air of barbaric splendour. Armlets of gold are 

 worn above the elbow, and bracelets of gold upon their 

 arms ; golden rings encircle their ankles, and several finger- 

 rings glitter on their hands ; heavy ear-rings hang pendent 

 from their ears, and one -side of the nostril is pierced to give 

 passage to a gold nose-ring, more or less chased in front. 

 These ornaments are not unfrequently all worn by one 

 woman, and it appears to be a common practice to invest 

 their money in these trinkets, so that a Kling woman carries 

 a small fortune upon her person. But cases are not wanting 

 in which this ostentatious display of wealth has excited the 

 cupidity of miscreants who have murdered the woman for the 

 sake of what she carries, and have ruthlessly torn the rings 



