16 LECTURE I. 



not be produced in the country that they had been stolen 

 in case of my non-return. 



Englishmen are very apt to form their opinion of 

 Africans from the elegant figures in tobacconists 1 shops : 

 I scarcely think such are fair specimens of the African. 

 I think at the same time, that the African women would 

 be much handsomer than they are if they would only let 

 themselves alone: though unfortunately that is a failing 

 by no means peculiar to African ladies ; but they are, 

 by nature, not particularly goodlooking, and seem to 

 take all the pains they can to make themselves worse. 

 The people of one tribe knock out all their upper front 

 teeth, and when they laugh are perfectly hideous. An- 

 other tribe of the Londa country file all their front 

 teeth to a point, like cats 1 teeth, and when they grin 

 put one in mind of alligators: many of the women 

 are comely, but spoil their beauty by such unnatural 

 means. Another tribe has a custom of piercing the 

 cartilage of the nose, and inserting a bit of reed, which 

 spreads it out, and makes them very disagreeable looking : 

 others tie their hair, or rather wool, into basket-work, 

 resembling the tonsorial decorations of the ancient 

 Egyptians; others, again, dress their hair with a hoop 

 around it, so as to resemble the gloria round the head 

 of the Virgin ; rather a different application of the hoop 

 to that of English ladies l ! 



1 The Batoka tribes, on the Zambesi, knock out their upper front 

 teeth, in order that they may, as they say, "look like oxen." They 



