62 JOCTIAN AND HIS WIFR [chap. i. 
as they came into the world ; their bodies rubbed with 
ashes, and their hair stained red by a plaster of ashes 
and cow’s urine. These fellows are the most un¬ 
earthly-looking devils I ever saw—there is no other 
expression for them. The unmarried women are also 
entirely naked; the married have a fringe madb of 
grass around their loins. The men wear heavy coils 
of beads about their necks, two heavy bracelets of 
ivory on the upper portion of the arms, copper 
rings upon the wrists, and a horrible kind of bracelet 
of massive iron armed with spikes about an inch in 
length, like leopard’s claws, which they use for a 
similar purpose. The chief of the Nuehr village, 
Joctian, with his wife and daughter, paid me a visit, 
and asked for all they saw in the shape of beads and 
bracelets, but declined a knife as useless. They went 
away delighted with their presents. The women per¬ 
forate the upper lip, and wear an ornament about four 
inches long of beads upon an iron wire; this projects 
like the horn of a rhinoceros ; they are very ugly. The 
men are tall and powerful, armed with lances. They 
carry pipes that contain nearly a quarter of a pound 
of tobacco, in which they smoke simple charcoal should 
the loved tobacco fail. The carbonic acid gas of the 
charcoal produces a slight feeling of intoxication, 
which is the effect desired. Koorshid Aga returned 
