ORNAMENTS OF THE LAKISTS. 



G5 



Though durable, it is never washed : after many 

 months' wear the superabundance of dirt is removed by 

 butter or ghee. 



Besides the common brass-wire girdles and bracelets, 

 armlets and anklets, masses of white-porcelain, blue- 

 glass, and large pigeon-egg beads, and hundreds of the 

 iron- wire circlets called sambo, which, worn with ponde- 

 rous brass or copper rings round the lower leg, above 

 the foot, suggest at a distance the idea of disease, the 

 Wajiji are distinguished from tribes not on the lake by 

 necklaces of shells — small pink bivalves strung upon a 

 stout fibre. They have learned to make brass from 

 the Arabs, by melting down one-third of zinc imported 

 from the coast with two parts of the fine soft and red 

 copper brought from the country of the Kazeembe. 

 Like their Lakist neighbours, they ornament the throat 

 with disks, crescents, and strings of six or seven cones, 

 fastened by the apex, and depending to the breast. 

 Made of the whitest ivory or of the teeth, not the tusks, 

 of the hippopotamus, these dazzling ornaments effec- 

 tively set off the dark and negro-like skin. Another 

 peculiarity amongst these people is a pair of iron pincers 

 or a piece of split wood ever hanging round the neck ; 

 nor is its use less remarkable than its presence. The 

 Lakists rarely chew, smoke, or take snuff according to 

 the fashion of the rest of mankind. Every man carries 

 a little half-gourd or diminutive pot of black earthen- 

 ware, nearly full of tobacco ; when inclined to indulge, 

 he fills it with water, expresses the juice, and from the 

 palm of his hand sniffs it up into his nostrils. The 

 pincers serve to close the exit, otherwise the nose must 

 be temporarily corked by the application of finger and 

 thumb. Without much practice it is difficult to arti- 

 culate during the retention of the dose, which lasts a 



VOL. II. F 



