88 AFRICAN WANDERINGS.

Turks, did not bestow the kindest or most friendly wishes on ns.

All the natives of these lands have a wild and defiant physiognomy, and, with their long black hair and fiery eyes, are by no means unlike their companions the beasts of blood and rapine of tlie shaaba. At home here, among their own settlements, no man moves unarmed, their round shields and lances are never for a moment out of reach. He who has no iron-headed lance or javelin, is sure to have a long slender staff, of some hard wood, pointed at the end, which, against a naked foe, is little inferior to a more finished lance ; the higher orders wear swords in no way differin"- from those in common use in Bellad-Sudan. Their build is generally tall and slender, but powerful, and a proud feeling of self-reliance and self-esteem is plainly displayed in all their movements and gestures. In colour most are dark brown or brownblack, but many, especially the women we saw, are brownyellow, or even yellow itself. Some few Negro slaves we saw were perfectly black. Their manner of dressing their hair is similar to that of the Bischari. They have on tlie crown a toupe, on the sides and behind the long hair is laid in small round twists or curls, first plaited and intertwisted and then frizzed out, so that a strong head of hair makes the head itself seem more than double the usual size, and when beheld from behind, gives the wearer the appearance of having no head, but an immense pyramid of hair rising direct from the shoulders. Thick beards they cannot boast of, and as little of thick calves. Water and wells were in plenty ; the latter, holes of twenty or thirty feet deep, going down into a clay subsoil ; from these the water is drawn by the women and poured into great circular flat trougua, made by a low small surrounding wall of clay or mud, for the cattle to drink from. The keeping these troughs full, as well as fetching all water for household purposes, falls on the women ; these, as we passed, were standing in crowds round the wells, drawing water or filling the skins which were enclosed in a kind of cord net-work. Some bore off these to the huts, some loaded the many asses with them, Avhile the men sat looking calmly on, nor did one of them stir to aid or assist the women in any way. The asses here, as well as the camels, are all trained to lie down, so as to be more easily loaded. Herds of cattle we saw every where, and often remarked