NATIVE DANDYISM. 
243 
neighbours the Bimbians. Some of the women are 
pretty, but inclined to be fat. Both sexes appear 
to give themselves up to enjoyment, dress, and the 
“ dolce far niente” induced by the climate, which also 
regulates the amount of clothing on the very narrowest 
scale consistent with decency ; although their profit- 
able intercourse with the palm-oil traders, has fur- 
nished them with ample supplies of European articles 
of dress, they prefer the simple country cloth, or at most, 
dandyism does not go beyond an English silk hand- 
kerchief, worn round the loins. Their persons however 
look dressy, from their gxeat cleanliness, and the 
glossiness of tlie skin produced by frequent embro- 
cations of palm-oil. The chief wears a chain of a 
number of little negro bells over his shoulders, hang- 
ing in a graceful curve down his spacious chest. The 
women pass hours in dressing the hair for one another, 
combing, and with little pointed sticks, separating 
each hair, giving it an opportunity of asserting its 
individual propensity to frizzle. They finish the toilet 
by attaching strings of large beads, and a pretty sort 
of rosette made of goat’s fat and the pounded skins of 
limes ; which, though fragrant at first, must rather 
heighten the natural rancid odour of their persons at 
the end of a month, until which time the preparation 
is said to last good. There is, in fact, an air of gen- 
tility and f6to about the whole population. 
‘‘ Gaily they dance the night away, 
And just do nothing all the day,” 
H. 2 
