632 Report on Shoa [No. 140. 



ence is endured to keep the hand in constant practice for carrying the 

 beloved spear. The clergy are more sensible in their predilections, 

 and their stout staff with an iron crutch as a handle, is a very laudable 

 instrument indeed, either for support or offence. 



21. The men scrupulously denude their cheeks and chins, in the 

 absence of the razor clipping with a pair of very indifferent scissors all 

 the hair close to the skin, and thus adding very considerably to the 

 dirty appearance of their unwashed faces; but the greatest attention 

 is paid to the management of the hair, with which nature has most 

 liberally supplied the head, and many hours are daily expended in 

 dressing the mop into many and quaint fashions. It is sometimes worn 

 hanging in long clustering ringlets over the cheeks and the neck ; 

 at other times frizzed into rounded matted protuberances, which are 

 studded over the greasy block, often fancifully tucked and trimmed 

 into small rows of minute curls like a judge's wig, and again boldly 

 parted into four large compartments like jelly moulds, but always reeking 

 with rancid butter, and exuding a most disagreeable effluvia. 



22. The clergy wear a high white cotton head-dress and black 

 woollen cloak, with coloured emblems of the faith attached in every 

 direction for public view. Treated with highest respect and veneration, 

 they are always addressed as Father, caressed and fed wherever they 

 choose to turn their footsteps ; all the natives fully believing that the 

 kissing the hand of one of these dirty shepherds, purines the body from 

 every sin. 



23. The colour of the Abyssinian race varies from a bright copper 

 to the deep jet black ; the men are by no means particularly handsome, 

 but the features of the women are of an inferior and more disagreeable 

 contour than those of most nations in the world. Small eyes and 

 flat noses are added to high cheek bones, low foreheads and a broad ex- 

 panse of countenance, and their attempts are exceedingly ingenious 

 to render more hideous the uncomely appearance which nature has 

 thought proper to bestow upon them. 



24. The eye-brows are totally depilated, and a deep narrow line 

 painted in their room with a strong permanent blue dye, bestowing a 

 more than ordinary look of foolishness, whilst the cheeks of the 

 high-born dames are plastered to the very eyes with red paint and fat ; 

 the hair is also either cropped, frizzed and besmeared with tallow 



