238 OUK NAKED FRIEND. Chap. XI. 



good, as far as we could learn, would result to any one in 

 this country from his knowledge of Freemasonry. A noble 

 specimen of the Baenda pezi order once visited us and gained 

 our esteem, though the full dress in which he stood consisted 

 only of a tobacco-pipe, with a stem two feet long wound 

 round with polished iron. He brought a liberal present. 

 " God made him naked," he said, " and he had therefore 

 never worn any sort of clothing." This gentleman's philo- 

 sophy is very much like that of some duty people we have 

 known, who justified then- want of fastidiousness by saying, 

 " fingers were made before forks." Early next morning we 

 had another interview with our naked friend, accompanied 

 this time by his wife and daughter, bearing two large pots 

 of beer, with which he wished us to refresh ourselves before 

 starting. Both the women, as comely and modest-looking 

 as any we have seen in Africa, were well - clothed, and 

 adorned, as indeed all their women are. Some wear tin 

 ear-rings all round the ear, and as many as nine often in 

 each ear. The men rub their bodies with red ochre. Some 

 plait a fillet two inches wide, of the inner bark of trees, and 

 shave the hair off the lower part of the head, an inch above 

 the ears being bare ; the hair, on the upper part, having 

 been well smeared with red ochre in oil, the fillet is bound 

 on to it, and gives the head the appearance of having on 

 a neat forage-cap. Some strings of coarse beads, and a 

 little polished iron-wire round the arms, the never-failing 

 pipe, and a small pair of iron tongs to lift the lighted coal, 

 constitute the entire clothing of the most dandified young 

 men of the Baenda pezi. ' All their other faculties seem 

 fairly developed ; but, as neither ridicule nor joking could 

 awaken the sense of shame, it is probable that clothing 

 alone would arouse the dormant feeling. Girls of eight or 



