TRAVELS IN AFRICA 
5 
Tallabunchia, which we also visited, is si- 
tuated on the north bank of the river, about 
four miles above Sandy Island, in a plain, beau- 
tifully shaded with lofty palm trees, and a 
great profusion of orange, lime, plantain, and 
bananas. The town is straggling and irregular, 
and contains about 200 inhabitants. The 
houses are about sixteen feet high, and divided, 
by a partition of split cane, into two apart- 
ments, one of which serves as a store for their 
rice, &c. and the other for a dwelling. The 
men are strong and well formed, but of an ex- 
tremely savage appearance ; their whole apparel 
consists of a fathom of cotton cloth wrapped 
round their waists ; they practise cutting the 
incisor teeth and tattooing the breasts and 
arms ; holes are pierced through the whole 
circle of the ear, in which are inserted bits of a 
coarse kind of grass. The dress of the women is 
still less decent or becoming ; a strip of cotton 
bound round the loins, in the shape of what 
surgeons call a T bandage, is their only cover- 
ing ; a band of twisted grass round the upper 
parts of the thigh, one immediately above, and 
another below the knee, with one over the 
ankle, constituted the female ornaments. The 
children were quite naked, and had large cop- 
per rings hanging from the cartilage of the nose. • v 
On the morning of the 14th, Captain Camp- 
