- Suahili-Land and the Wasuahili. 6i 
the bare head, abundantly greased, shines h*ke a boot 
well polished with Day and Martin's best. 
The Msuahili woman neglects no part of her 
person. One of her favourite habits is to load her 
eyes with Wanda, a black mixture such as might 
easily be made of lampblack and oil. This she 
fancies adds considerably to the lustre of her eyes ! 
In the left wing of her nose she inserts a stud of 
either brass or gold. The lobes of her ears are 
pierced and gradually distended to a size sufficiently 
large to receive a ring an inch and a half or two 
inches in diameter. The ornaments worn in them are 
of different kinds ; now a small Hme, now a disk ol 
wood, now a bundle of cloves made up for the 
purpose, and now a ring of silver. The upper rims 
of the ears are thickly perforated all round, for the 
, purpose of receiving silver studs, instead of which, 
however, pieces of wood frequently have to do 
service. Beads often adorn her neck, but a silver 
chain is sometimes worn. Numerous charms are 
always attached to these ornaments. Her fingers 
are heavily and, I may say, lustrously bejewelled. 
Rings, with Austrian Maria Theresa dollars and 
Indian rupees attached, are worn, three or four on 
one hand, so that the fingers and almost the whole 
hand is completely hidden. Bracelets of horn or 
silver encircle the wrists, and similar ornaments 
adorn the ankles. Such is a rough sketch of the 
middle-class Msuahili woman, a poor degraded crea- 
ture, but wonderfully self-complacent and contented 
with her lot. Thousands of women coming under 
the general designation of Wasuahili there are who 
are far below the picture we have drawn. They are 
