108 
DRESS OF THE WOMEN. 
two for the arms. The openings are not at the side^ as they 
are in the men's dresses^ and the stuff falls in drapery so as 
not to obstruct the motion of the body ; where it is sewed 
together at each shoulder, there is a silver clasp, which serves 
to support the second round of the stuff ; the third passes 
over the head, and forms a head-dress. 
In mourning, or in the presence of strangers, of christians 
especially, they put it on so as to show nothing bat their 
eyes. This dress is called malafe; they have no change of 
apparel, but wear it for two or three months without washing, 
and are often two years without being able to procure a new 
one. 
They have fine hair which they lay in tresses round 
the head in an oval form, two smaller tresses which unite 
under the ear, are ornamented with pieces of glass, and hang 
down on each side of the head. Some of them have, on the 
sides, two other longer tresses, from which they suspend 
strings of amber, coral, and glass beads, hanging down upon 
the breast ; others again have an immense number of tresses, 
but always loaded with ornaments. Those who do not suspend 
their string of beads from the hair, attach it to the clasps 
of their dress they are not in the habit of wearing it round 
the neck. A strip of Guinea cloth, five feet in length, and 
five or six inches wide, completes their head-dress ; they 
wrap it several times round the head. They grease their hair 
daily with butter ; this custom preserves the hair extremely 
well, but communicates an insupportably rank smell. The 
young girls have a large gold ear-ring in the lower part of 
each ear, and four others in the upper part, which is bent 
down by their weight. Women of twenty- four wear 
only one small ring in the upper part of the ear. 
Children go quite naked till the age of twelve or four- 
teen ; their heads are shaved and figures drawn upon them, 
or tufts of hair left ; but sometimes only half the head is 
shaved. At twelve the hair of the girls is suffered to grow, 
