98 
WOMEN OF UNYAMUEZI. 
a gentle, ladylike curtsy, ask me to accept it ; refusal 
would have been boorish. Her old eyes were getting 
dim, and on her hearing that I had made up some 
wash (from filings of zinc), thinking in her ignorance 
it might have a virtue for impaired vision, she begged 
for a little. On our getting to Cairo, some beads and 
trinkets were sent her ladyship via Zanzibar, which it 
is to be hoped have ere this reached her. 
The women, through my servants, soon found out 
that I had a looking-glass. They took it into their 
hands, and held it there, continually looking at them- 
selves, but it was evident they were not altogether 
satisfied with their appearance. They busied them- 
selves with field operations, even using the flail, and at 
night a band of them would meet to dance in the moon- 
light. Their manner was to twist their bodies, stamp, 
and sing, till, exhausted by their antics, they paused to 
breathe and laugh. Two quarrelled one day, and came 
at last to blows, striking out like men, and drawing 
blood, but they were separated by our Seedees. They 
are very masculine in several respects ; two of them ac- 
companied me as volunteer porters when going to join 
Speke, and were even more inveterate smokers than 
the men. Their entire dress was one cloth wrapped 
round the loins from below the breasts to the calf of 
the leg, below which, down to the ankle, were immense 
masses of brass or iron wire rings, as before described. 
The head wool, dressed with an oily preparation, looked 
as if they wore a scalp of shining black beetles, among 
which were interspersed hawthorn-berry-coloured beads 
or rings of brass ; others wore their hair in tassels, with 
seed-charms, &c. Necklaces of beads, brown or rose- 
coloured, adorned their necks ; they had no rings on 
