DANDIES AND BELLES. 



197 



The interminable forests and flooded streams, and the stupid 

 ignorance of the people who were found living in the gloomy 

 recesses of the country, all contributed to the difficulty of 

 their progress, and they had not yet come to the habitat of any 

 interesting specimens of animal life. After crossing the Loa- 

 jima, the party made a little "detour southward," in order to 

 get off of the path of traders. Hardly anything is more dis- 

 gusting and provoking than the air of importance of slightly 

 informed people, and in this the petty African chiefs who have 

 had some little intercourse with these traders are perfect masters. 

 The innocent vanities of the generous inhabitants of the more 

 secluded sections were rather entertaining than otherwise. It 

 may be a pleasing bit of information to the large class of our 

 countrymen of the Beau Hickman stamp, that even benighted 

 Africa is well supplied with dandies of as various whims as 

 those who dwell in the clearer light of American civilization. 

 There is, for instance, in the deep forests of Africa, the musical 

 dandy, who, with the daintiest air, thumbs his iron-keyed in- 

 strument in matchless hum-drum the night long. Then there 

 is the martial dandy, who, like his American counterpart, de- 

 lights in the display of soldierly insignia in safe distance from 

 scenes of strife. And there is the effeminate dandy, who is 

 always seen dandling his canary in a cage. And the dandy 

 absolute, "par excellence" in the list; an aimless fop, who de- 

 lights in the display of himself, with " lucubrated hair and 

 ornaments innumerable." The ladies, too, who rejoice in their 

 snowy poodles, may be pleased to know that their sable sisters, 

 in the sequestered glens beneath an equatorial sun, arrange their 

 strands of beads about their necks with greatest skill, and, 

 esteeming themselves in full dress, are seen to simper artfully 

 while they fondle their charming canine " pets." Civilization 

 cannot claim a monopoly of the ornaments of society. For 

 every young man standing on a corner in self-conscious attitud- 

 inizing, there is a fellow, quite as self-conscious and fixed up in 

 his way, standing about the paths and huts of Africa. And for 

 every woman who lavishes caresses and baby talk on kittens 

 and puppies, there is in Africa a maiden or childless matron 

 who dandles creatures like them quite as fondly, with equal 

 prodigality of gibberish quite as sentimental. It is so, on the 

 word of a serious missionary, just as we write it. 



