130 
A FIUC A AND ITS EXPLORATION. 
about Nkulu seemed to be a very mixed race. Some 
were ultra-negro, of the dead dull-black type, prog- 
nathous and long-headed like apes ; others were of the 
red variety, with hair and eyes of a brownish tinge, and 
a few had features which if whitewashed could hardly 
be distinguished from Europeans. The tattoo was re- 
markable as amongst the tribes of the lower Zambeze. * 
There were waistcoats, epaulettes, braces and cross-belts 
of huge welts, and raised polished lumps which must 
have cost not a little suffering ; the skin is pinched up 
between the fingers and sawn across with a bluntish 
knife, the deeper the better ; various plants are used as 
styptics, and the proper size of the cicatrice is main- 
tained by constant pressure, which makes the flesh 
protrude from the wound. The teeth were as bar- 
barously mutilated as the skin ; these had all the incisors 
sharp-tipped ; those chipped a chevron-shaped hole in 
the two upper or lower frontals, and not a few seemed 
to attempt converting the whole denture into molars. 
The legs were undeniably fine ; even Hieland Mary’s 
would hardly be admired here. Whilst the brown 
mothers smoked and carried their babies, the men bore 
guns adorned with brass tacks, or leaned upon their 
short, straight, conical “ spuds ” and hoes, long-handled 
bits of iron whose points, after African fashion, passed 
through the wood. I nowhere saw the handsome carved 
spoons, the hafts and knife-sheatlis figured by the Congo 
Expedition. 
We left the quitanda with the same shouting and 
rushing which accompanied my appearance. 
* “ Journal of tlie Koyal Geographical Society,” vol. iii. p. 206, 1833. 
