THE CHILDREN. 
179 
without the support of a person on either side. In 
some respects they reminded me of Hindoo women. 
In visiting us, the better class, from modesty or cus- 
tom, had a shawl of bark-cloth covering all their per- 
sons except one eye, while they wore the ordinary 
friezed cow-skin from the waist to the ankle. They 
were very fond of pictures, the sultan always indulging 
them by sending my sketches for their amusement. 
They could make caps of cane stuffed from the outside 
with their own wool, like moss in a summer-house. 
Their children were very handsome, with large shining 
black eyes : the wool w^as never shaved off their heads 
nor cut till after marriage, and no covering was ever 
on their loins till the age of puberty, or even later. 
Boys and girls would come to look at us, careless or 
unconscious of their nudity, and chatting without the 
slightest shyness. A wet-nurse is provided for the 
infant prince or princess, who is generally suckled 
away from home, as was the custom amongst High- 
land families in the last century. Their after-diet is 
altogether milk : they are whipped into drinking and 
fattening themselves with it. No marriage ceremonies 
were observed, but on two occasions we saw a couple 
of women walk together without any followers, one of 
them hidden in bark-clothes ; and we understood that 
the veiled one was being conveyed to her betrothed. 
The dead of the Wanyambo, as has already been men- 
tioned, are deposited in the lake, and princes alone 
receive burial on the island. On one occasion we 
observed inside a village enclosure two sticks tied to 
a stone, and lying across the pathway ; and this was 
done, as we ascertained, to prevent people walking 
over the spot, as a woman had died there. 
