62 UGANDA AND THE EGYPTIAN SOUDAN.

The people are tall, powerfully built, and of a dark chocolate colour ; their heads are much ornamented. The men's dress is either a leopard or goat-skin, which partly covers the body ; and the women's, a girdle made of a piece of soft leather, cut behind in much the same shape as the tails of a dress-coat, the married women wearing an exceedingly narrow fringe of string in front, while the unmarried wear nothing but bead ornaments.

It is a universal practice among the Shulis to smear themselves with red paint, made of oxide of iron, and the oil obtained from the sem-sem seed. One curious custom which distinguishes them from other tribes is that of boring a hole in the underlip, and inserting in it a piece of crystal three or four inches long, which sways about as they speak. The four lower incisor teeth are also extracted.

These two customs combine to make their utterance 'very imperfect.

At night the grass was being burnt in the southsouth-east, and it was a grand sight to see the fire rolling onwards for miles, while the glass revealed the elephants and other wild animals rushing madly from their terrible foe. The natives are frequently very careless in lighting these fires, and I have often seen the villages in great danger of being burnt down. After having lit the grass all round, they are often obliged to beat out the fires with branches of trees to prevent the huts igniting.