THEIR PHYSICAL CHARACTER. 171 



and dressed into long, pipe-like ringlets, smeared 

 sometimes with red ochre, sometimes left of its 

 natural black colour ; others had wigs, not to be dis- 

 tinguished from the natural hair, till closely ex- 

 amined. The septum narium was bored, but there 

 was seldom any thing worn in it. Most of their 

 ears were pierced all round with small holes, in 

 which pieces of grass were stuck, and in many the 

 lobe was torn and hanging down to the shoulder. 

 Their only scars were the faint oval marks on the 

 shoulder. The hair of their bodies and limbs grew 

 in small tufts, giving the skin a slightly woolly ap- 

 pearance. They were entirely naked, but frequently 

 wore ornaments made of mother-of-pearl shells, 

 either circular or crescent-shaped, hanging round 

 their necks. Occasionally, also, we saw a part of a 

 large shell, apparently a cassis, cut into a projecting 

 shield shape, worn in front of the groin. The women 

 wore a petticoat round the waist, reaching nearly to 

 the knees, formed of strips of leaves sown on to a 

 girdle. These formed a very efficient covering, as 

 one or two were worn over each other. The grown- 

 up woman's petticoat, or " nessoor," was formed, 

 we afterwards found, of the inside part of the large 

 leaves of a bulbous-rooted plant, called by them 

 " teggaer," of which each strip was an inch broad. 

 The girl's " nessoor" was made of much narrower 

 strips from the inside of the leaf of the plantain, 

 which they call " cabbow."* 



* One of each of these kinds of petticoat have been deposited 

 in the British Museum. 



