dence and bold friendliness showed how well they
had been treated. Probably half of our visitors were men; several were
small boys; one was a woman with a baby; the others were young married
women and girls.

Nowhere in Africa did we come across wilder or more absolutely
primitive savages, although these Indians were pleasanter and better-
featured than any of the African tribes at the same stage of culture.
Both sexes were well-made and rather good-looking, with fairly good
teeth, although some of them seemed to have skin diseases. They were a
laughing, easy-tempered crew, and the women were as well-fed as the
men, and were obviously well-treated, from the savage standpoint;
there was no male brutality like that which forms such a revolting
feature in the life of the Australian black fellows and, although to a
somewhat less degree, in the life of so many negro and Indian tribes.
They were practically absolutely naked. In many savage tribes the men
go absolutely naked, but the women wear a breech-clout or loincloth.
In certain tribes we saw near Lake Victoria Nyanza, and on the upper
White Nile, both men and women were practically naked. Among these
Nhambiquaras the women were more completely naked than the men,
although the difference was not essential. The men wore a string
around the waist. Most of them wore nothing else, but a few had
loosely hanging from this string in front a scanty tuft of dried
grass, or a small piece of cloth, which, however, was of purely
symbolic use so far as either protection or modesty was concerned. The
women did not wear a stitch of any kind anywhere on their bodies. They
did not have on so much as a string, or a bead, or even an ornament in
their hair. They were all, men and women, boys and well-grown young
girls, as entirely at ease and unconscious as so many friendly
animals. All of them--men, women, and children, laughing and talking--
crowded around us, whether we were on horseback or on foot. They
flocked into the house, and when I sat down to write surrounded me so
closely that I had to push them gently away. The women and girls often
stood holding one another's hands, or with their arms over one
another's shoulders or around one another's waists, offering an
attractive picture. The men had holes pierced through the septum of
the nose and through the upper lip, and wore a straw through each
hole. The women were not marked or mutilated. It seems like a
contradiction in terms, but