662 FONDNESS FOR DISPLAY. 



of music, and among them there are artists who, in spite of the 

 barbarous monotony of their strains, furnish real amusement. 

 Many of these individuals are great improvisators, and delight 

 to weave the latest political news or personal scandal into their 

 merry songs. 



The national love of ornament also prevails in all its extrava- 

 gance. ".From the hour that a maiden begins to call for 

 mamma," says Mr. Stanley, "her ornaments are her constant 

 solicitude. She loves to look at the pretty wristlets of red, 

 yellow, white, and green beads which rest upon her dark skin 

 in such contrast ; she loves to twine her fingers through the 

 lengthy necklaces of variegated beads, or to play with the bead 

 belt that encompasses her waist ; she even sets them in her hair 

 and loves to be told that they become her (as what maiden does 

 not ?) It is a pleasure with her to possess a spiral wire cinc- 

 ture even though she possesses no garment to be supported by 

 it. She awaits with impatience the day when she can be mar- 

 ried, and have a cloth to fold around her body — until she can 

 have authority to dispose of her fowls for the cheap tinsel sold 

 by Arab merchants." The grave matrons, too, display disposi- 

 tions quite as comprehensible to the ladies of more enlightened 

 lands as is this craving of the maidens for wealth of ornament. 

 Perhaps there is nothing more matronly than the propensity 

 which has its fullest indulgence in those evening gatherings of 

 world-wide reputation as tea-parties, and, unquestionably, the 

 benevolent champions of female contentment will hail with de- 

 light the testimony of an eye-witness, that he had "never beheld 

 anything so approaching to happiness and perfect contentment 

 as the faces of the old and young women of Unyamwezi as they 

 gathered at sunset from the various houses to sit and chat to- 

 gether about the events of the day or those trite subjects of 

 universal interest in such circles. It is a scene for the artist. 

 Each female has her short stool and her growing daughter by 

 her side, who, while her mother chats and smokes with radiant 

 face, employs her nimble hands in converting her parent's woolly 

 locks into a series of plaits and ringlets. The elder females 

 particularly, squatted in a circle, begin to recite their experiences, 

 chattering away like swallows, or like ladies elsewhere: one 

 tells how her cow has stopped giving milk; another how well 



