nal and sweet-smelling herbs, but they never think of making a
chaste veil of large leaves with which to cover those parts of their
persons that ought to be kept secret from the public gaze.

The costume that they are wearing in the photographs was prepared by me
in order to present these ochre-coloured Eves to my readers in a more
decent state, or rather, a little more in accordance with what civilized
society requires, because "to the pure all things are pure" and in my
opinion the perfect innocence in which these women go about naked is
preferable to that consciousness of their natural form which leads so
many of our society ladies and other females, to resort to artificial
means that they may deceive their admirers, and gain a name for beauty.

The men, too, are even to be envied, for in the total absence of
nether-garments their better-halves can never claim "to wear the
trousers" as sometimes happens amongst us.

Necklaces are very much worn by Sakai girls and women. They are made of
beads (which are considered the most elegant) serpents' teeth, animals'
claws, shells, berries or seeds.

The men, instead, finish off their toilet by loading their wrists with
bracelets. These are of brass-wire, bamboo or _akar batu_ which it is
believed preserves them from the fever.

Their faces are always disfigured by coloured stripes or hieroglyphics.

They have not the custom of wearing rings through their noses but only a
little bamboo stick that is supposed to have the virtue of keeping off I
don't exactly know what sort of malady or spirit.

The mother bores a hole through the nose cartilage of her child with a
porcupine quill and then takes care that the wound heals quickly,
without closing. Afterwards she passes through a light piece of this
reed.

The same operation is made upon the ears, which from being generally
well-shaped, become deformed, as the hole through the lobe has to be
very large. It is not sufficient to pierce the tissue with a quill; a
little bamboo cane has to be at once inserted; the day after a larger
one is substituted and so on until it is possible to hang from the ears
pendants made of bamboo and ornamented with flowers, leaves and perhaps
even cigarettes.

A strip of _upas_ bark twisted round the head bestows the finishing
touch to the Sakais' toilet. Happy people! They have no tailor's,
dressmaker's or milliner's bills to pay!

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 10: _Gne_ would be pronounced in E