ACROSS NHAMBIQUARA LAND 217 



tion, even at his expense, and stealing a dog or. something 

 else which strikes them as offering an irresistible attraction. 

 They cannot be employed at steady work; but they do 

 occasional odd jobs, and are excellent at hunting up strayed 

 mules or oxen; and a few of the men have begun to wear 

 clothes, purely for ornament. Their confidence and bold 

 friendliness showed how well they had been treated. Prob- 

 ably half of our visitors were men; several were small 

 boys; one was a woman with a baby; the others were 

 young married women and girls. 



Nowhere in Africa did we come across wilder or more 

 absolutely primitive savages, although these Indians were 

 pleasanter and better-featured than any of the African 

 tribes at the same stage of culture. Both sexes were well- 

 made and rather good-looking, with fairly good teeth, al- 

 though some of them seemed to have skin diseases. They 

 were a laughing, easy-tempered crew, and the women were 

 as well-fed as the men, and were obviously well-treated, 

 from the savage standpoint; there was no male brutality 

 like that which forms such a revolting feature in the life 

 of the Australian black fellows and, although to a some- 

 what less degree, in the life of so many negro and Indian 

 tribes. They were practically absolutely naked. In many 

 savage tribes the men go absolutely naked, but the women 

 wear a breech-clout or loin-cloth. In certain tribes we saw 

 near Lake Victoria Nyanza, and on the upper White Nile, 

 both men and women were practically naked. Among 

 these Nhambiquaras the women were more completely 

 naked than the men, although the difference was not es- 

 sential. The men wore a string around the waist. Most 

 of them wore nothing else, but a few had loosely hanging 



