THE WAJIJI TEIBE. 



63 



violence ; they think little in their cups of entering a 

 stranger's hut, and of snatching up and carrying away 

 an article which excites their admiration. Many of both 

 sexes, and all ages, are disfigured by the small-pox — 

 the Arabs have vainly taught them inoculation — and 

 there are few who are not afHicted by boils and various 

 eruptions ; there is also an inveterate pandemic itch, 

 which, according to their Arab visitors, results from a 

 diet of putrid fish. 



This tribe is extensively tattooed, probably as a pro- 

 tection against the humid atmosphere, and the chills of 

 the Lake Region. Some of the chiefs have ghastly scars 

 raised by fire, in addition to large patterns marked upon 

 their persons — lines, circles, and rays of little cupping- 

 cuts drawn down the back, the stomach, and the arms, 

 like the tattoo of the Wangindo tribe near Kilwa. Both 

 sexes love to appear dripping with oil ; and they mani- 

 festly do not hold cleanliness to be a virtue. The head 

 ' is sometimes shaved ; rarely the hair is allowed to grow ; 

 the most fashionable coiffure is a mixture of the two ; 

 patches and beauty-spots in the most eccentric shapes — 

 buttons, crescents, crests, and galeated lines — being 

 allowed to sprout either on the front, the sides, or the 

 back of the head, from a carefully- scraped scalp. 

 Women as well as men are fond of binding a wisp of 

 white tree-fibre round their heads, like the ribbon which 

 confines the European old person's wig. There is not 

 a trace of mustachio or whisker in the country ; they 

 are removed by the tweezers, and the climate, accord- 

 ing to the Arabs, is, like that of Unyamwezi, unfavourable 

 to beards. For cosmetics both sexes apply, when they 

 can procure such luxuries, red earth to the face, and over 

 the head a thick-coating of chalk or mountain-meal, which 

 makes their blackness stand out hideously grotesque. 



