THROUGH THE PLEISTOCENE 
15 
of the savages we saw wore red blankets, and in deference 
to white prejudice draped them so as to hide their naked¬ 
ness. But others appeared—men and women—with liter¬ 
ally not one stitch of clothing, although they might have 
rather elaborate hairdresses, and masses of metal ornaments 
on their arms and legs. In the region where one tribe 
dwelt all the people had their front teeth filed to sharp 
points; it was strange to see a group of these savages,stark 
naked, with oddly shaved heads and filed teeth, armed 
with primitive bows and arrows, stand gravely gazing at 
the train as it rolled into some station; and none the less 
strange, by the way, because the locomotive was a Bald¬ 
win, brought to Africa across the great ocean from our 
own country. One group of women, nearly nude, had their 
upper arms so tightly bound with masses of bronze or cop¬ 
per wire that their muscles were completely malformed. 
So tightly was the wire wrapped round the upper third of 
the upper arm, that it was reduced to about one-half of 
its normal size; and the muscles could only play, and that 
in deformed fashion, below this unyielding metal bandage. 
Why the arms did not mortify it was hard to say; and their 
freedom of use was so hampered as to make it difficult to 
understand how men or women whose whole lives are passed 
in one or another form of manual labor could inflict upon 
themselves such crippling and pointless punishment. 
Next morning we were in the game country, and as we 
sat on the seat over the cow-catcher it was literally like 
passing through a vast zoological garden. Indeed no such 
railway journey can be taken on any other line in any other 
land. At one time we passed a herd of a dozen or so of 
great giraffes, cows and calves, cantering along through the 
