178 
BAY OF AMPHILA. 
juwarry bread, a small quantity of fish, an inadequate supply of 
goats and camels milk, and a kid on very particular occasions 
constitutes the whole of their subsistence. In the interior they 
live a little better, and possess large droves of cattle, whichj 
during the rainy season yield abundance of milk. As there did 
not appear to be any cultivation of the ground in practice among 
this people, it may be strictly termed a pastoral nation. All the 
natives, both men and women, have an extraordinary craving 
after tobacco : they smoke it, take it in the form of snuff, and 
are in the habitual practice of chewing it, which, in a certain 
degree, I imagine, satisfies the calls of hunger. The dress of the 
men consists of a single piece of Arabian or Abyssinian cloth 
loosely wrapped round the body, and their hair, which is crisped, 
is curiously dressed out, frizzed, powdered with brown dust, and 
covered with grease in a similar way to that practised by the 
Hazorta and other tribes on the coast. The dress of the women 
is somewhat more modest than that of the men, though not very 
appropriate to their sex, part of it being formed of a close covering 
resembling a species of drawers, the edges of which are variously 
ornamented with kowries and other shells. Their hair is plaited 
in small ringlets, and their arms and legs are adorned with 
bracelets of ivory and silver. The drudgery of the house, such 
as grinding corn, baking the bread, and fetching the water, is 
as usual allotted to the females ; while the males pass their time 
in tending their cattle, or more frequently in smoking and 
idleness. 
Their huts are constructed in the shape of the wig^wams of th^ 
American Indians, and are covered with mats formed out of the 
