312 
TRAVELS IN AFRICA. 
Chap. LXL 
Zishia. near Tera. The nobler among them do not 
disfigure their features at all by tattooing, or " korto," 
while some of them make an incision under the left 
eye, from the nose towards the cheek-bone, and the 
common people, three separate incisions — three cuts 
on the temple, three in the middle of the cheek, and 
three at the lower part of the face. All of them wear 
clothing, the greater part of them being dressed in 
indigo-dyed shirts. Their weapons consist almost 
entirely of spears. Swords are very rare; nor are 
the bow and arrow, which constitute the principal 
weapons of the people of Dargol, usual among them. 
The exertions of the natives of these places in defend- 
ing their independence are greatly favoured by the 
discord and dissensions which prevail amongst the 
Fiilbe, — Mahamudu, one of the Fiilbe chiefs of Dalla, 
having, in consequence of his disputes with the sheikh 
A'hmedu, taken refuge with the pagan natives of 
Mosi, from whence he makes continual predatory ex- 
peditions against the territory of his countrymen 
the Fiilbe. The inhabitants of Tinge, therefore, males 
as well as females, enjoy their liberty and independence 
in smoking the whole day long, and dancing every 
evening when it is not raining, — an amusement which 
already, in the eleventh century, the Andalusian geo- 
grapher El Bekri did not fail to remark as character- 
istic of these people*, while their less happy brethren 
in Timbuktu and Jirnballa have been deprived of these 
* El Bekri, " Description de l'Afrique," Arabe texte, published 
by Macguckin de Slane, p. 183. 
