FULL UN-DRESS. 



143 



advanced gladly, and upon a small valley of wonderful beauty 

 it broke upon their eyes, weary of the deep shadows of the 

 wood, like a fairy picture. Gently meandering along the very 

 centre of the valley was a beautiful stream, and a little rivulet 

 came in from the west. There was the town, embowered in the 

 splendid tropical trees whose broad leaves lapping and woven 

 formed a splendid canopy, and everywhere in the arbor-like 

 grove the banana was seen, drooping its tempting fruit just over 

 the heads of the people. You remember the singular Bechuana 

 abhorrence of straight lines : everything, you remember, was 

 crooked; their huts were round, their streets were tortuous. 

 The square houses and straight streets of the town of Shinte 

 were a delightful change. These streets and huts, too, were 

 thronging with strange sights. The remarkable poverty of 

 clothing in use in Balonda has been mentioned, but it must not 

 be understood that this is because of the poverty of the people, 

 or their greater ignorance as compared with their more southern 

 neighbors. It is simply fashion, and you know there is no 

 disputing on that subject: fashion is fashion. There may be a 

 fashion of going undressed or dressed. The former is the 

 Balonda fashion. The skill which confines itself to the adorn- 

 ment of the ankles and head is there displayed in most 

 remarkable manner. Their otherwise pleasant features are 

 distorted by the pieces of reed which they thrust through the 

 septum of the nose. The hair is woven in a great variety of 

 patterns: the more common appearance is that of horns like a 

 buffalo ; sometimes there is only a single horn protruding in 

 front. One of the most remarkable styles is almost startling to 

 the uninitiated beholder : the hair is woven into a great num- 

 ber of strands ; these are all so arranged as to stand out from 

 the head, and are fastened at their extremities to a hoop of 

 light wood, so that the face appears at a little distance as if set 

 in a painful sarcasm on the nimbus with which the heads of 

 saints are surrounded. 



The men are a little more conformed to our ideas of decency, 

 in that they wear aprons of beautifully tanned skins ; and their 

 wealth of woolly hair enables them to rival their sable belles in 

 its awful arrangement. Both men and women are eager for all 

 articles of foreign manufacture ; particularly are they covetous 



