rotrudes
like a beak and the mouth is large. The two upper incisors are broken
out as a sign of matrimony.

Their figures, except in young girls, are generally wasted,
yet one occasionally meets with a woman of fine and symmetrical
build. The dress is restricted to a small leaf, attached to a thin
loin-string. Both men and women generally wear at the back a bundle of
leaves; women and boys have strongly scented herbs, the men coloured
croton, the shade depending on the caste of the wearer. The highest
castes wear the darkest, nearly black, varieties. These croton bushes
are planted along the sides of the gamals, so as to furnish the men's
ornaments; and they lend the sombre places some brightness and colour.

Half for ornament and half for purposes of healing are the large
scars which may frequently be seen on the shoulders or breasts of
the natives. The cuts are supposed to cure internal pains; the scabs
are frequently scratched off, until the scar is large and high,
and may be considered ornamental. Apropos of this medical detail
I may mention another remedy, for rheumatism: with a tiny bow and
arrow a great number of small cuts are shot into the skin of the
part affected; the scars from these wounds form a network of fine,
hardly noticeable designs on the skin.

The life and cult of the natives are as simple as their dress. The
houses are scattered and hidden in the bush, grouped vaguely around
the gamal, which stands alone on a bare square. No statues stand there,
nor tall, upright drums; only a few small drums lie in a puddle around
the gamal.

The dwelling-houses are simply gable-roofs, always without side-walls
and often without any walls at all. They are divided into a pig-stable
and a living-room, unless the owners prefer to have their pigs living
in the same space with themselves.

A few flat wooden dishes are the only implements the native does
not find ready-made in nature. Cooking is done with heated stones
heaped around the food, which has been previously wrapped up in
banana leaves. Lime-stones naturally cannot be used for that purpose,
and volcanic stones have often to be brought from quite a distance,
so that these cooking-stones are treated with some care. In place of
knives the natives use shells or inland bamboo-splinters, but both
are rapidly being replaced by European knives.

On approaching a village we are first frightened by a few pigs, which
run away grunting and scolding into the thick