1812. MANNER IN WHICH GIRLS ADORN THEMSELVES. 59 
When it happens, which is not often the case, that a girl has 
grown up to womanhood without having previously been betrothed, 
her lover must gain her own approbation, as well as that of the parents; 
and on this occasion his attentions are received with an affectation of 
great alarm and disinclination on her part, and with some squabbling 
on the part of her friends. 
Several of these girls might be said to be pretty, more on account 
of their youth and the pleasing expression of their countenances, 
than of any beauty of features : but it is doubtful whether, throughout 
the whole nation, one could be found whom a European could deem 
handsome. When, in the morning, they came to the general distribu- 
tion of tobacco, they had not yet performed the duties of their toilet ; 
but I now had the pleasure of beholding them as fine and as capti- 
vating as buku and red-ochre could make them. The former, as a 
green powder, was sprinkled over their head and neck, and the latter, 
mixed with grease, was applied in daubs or streaks over or along the 
nose, and across the cheek-bones : and what was thought by these 
simple Africans to be the most graceful and fascinating style of 
adorning themselves, was precisely the same as that which the clowns 
and buffoons at our fairs, have adopted in order to render their ap- 
pearance absurd and ridiculous. 
Many of the women were distinguished by having the hair of 
the forehead, by the constant accumulation of grease and red-ochre, 
clotted into large red lumps, like stone : this was not through neglect 
of cleaning it away, but from a fancy that it was highly becoming, 
and that it added greatly to their charms. Some had the crown of 
their heads shaved, or, rather, scraped bald, (as represented by the 
vignette at page 1.) and a row of buttons fastened round the remain- 
ing hair which had been left in its natural state. All of them wore 
bracelets, either of leather, or of twisted sinew, or copper ; and most 
of them were decorated with some kind of ornament hangina from 
the ear. Their stature was extremely small, and their figure in 
general delicate ; their height being universally less than five feet. 
I noticed a singularity of figure, which I had not hitherto ob- 
served among Hottentots ; nor was it since found to be, in any tribe, 
I 2 
