THE WANYAMWEZI. 



21 



ancient Egyptians and the modern Hottentots. The 

 beard is thin and short, there are no whiskers, and the 

 moustachio — when not plucked out — is scant and 

 straggling. Most of the men and almost all the women 

 remove the eyelashes, and pilar hair rarely appears to 

 grow. The normal figure of the race is tall and stout, 

 and the women are remarkable for the elongation of 

 the mammary organs. Few have small waists, and the 

 only lean men in the land are the youths, the sick, and 

 the famished. This race is said to be long-lived, and it 

 is not deficient in bodily strength and savage courage. 

 The clan-mark is a double line of little cuts, like the 

 marks of cupping, made by a friend with a knife or 

 razor, along the temporal fossae from the external edges 

 of the eyebrows to the middle of the cheeks or to the 

 lower jaws. Sometimes a third line, or a band of three 

 small lines, is drawn down the forehead to the bridge of 

 the nose. The men prefer a black, charcoal being the 

 substance generally used, the women a blue colour, and 

 the latter sometimes ornament their faces with little 

 perpendicular scars below the eyes. They do not file 

 the teeth into a saw-shape as seen amongst the southern 

 races, but they generally form an inner triangular or 

 wedge-shaped aperture by chipping away the internal 

 corners of the two front incisors like the Damaras, and 

 the women extract the lower central teeth. Both sexes 

 enlarge the lobes of the ears. In many parts of the 

 country skins are more commonly worn than cloth, ex- 

 cept by the Sultans and the wealthier classes. The 

 women wear the long tobe of the coast, tightly wrapped 

 round either above or more commonly below the breast ; 

 the poorer classes veil the bosom with a square or 

 softened skin ; the remainder of the dress is a kilt or 

 short petticoat of the same material extending from 



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