[Note: this transcription was produced by an automatic OCR engine]

SANTO I 4 3

altogether they present a sad picture of degeneration
and misery, and there are few healthy men to be seen.

My luggage is taken into the gamal, and I order
the boys to buy and prepare food, whereupon the
natives hurry away and fetch a quantity of supplies:
pigs, fowls, yam, taro, of which I buy a large stock,
paying in matches and tobacco. There are also eggs,
which, I am assured, are delicious ; but this is accord-
ing to native taste, which likes eggs best when half
hatched. While the boys are cooking, I spend the
time in measuring the villagers. At first they are
afraid of the shiny, pointed instruments, but the
tobacco they receive, after submitting to the operation,
dispels their fears. The crowd sits round us on the
ground, increasing the uneasiness of my victims by
sarcastic remarks.

Meanwhile, the women have arrived, and crouch
in two groups at the end of the square, which they
are forbidden to enter. There are about twenty of
them, not many for nearly fifty men, but I see only
three or four babies, and many faded figures and old—
looking girls of coarse and virile shape, the con-
sequence of premature abuse and‘artificial sterility.
But they chat away quite cheerfully, giggle, wonder,
clap their hands, and laugh, taking hold of each other,
and rocking to and fro.

At last the two chiefs arrive, surprisingly tall and
Well-built men, with long beards carefully groomed,
and big mops of hair. Like all the men, they are
dressed in a piece of calico that hangs down in front,
and a branch of croton behind. They have big