" MURDER " AND POLITENESS 269 kneeling on moist earth in the course of their dailywork, is due to their abstention from the habit of painting themselves white, to their practice of shaving their heads entirely, and to the fact that, unlike the cattle-herding men, they do not sleep on burnt-ash beds, but in their own huts. One of the quaint sights of the country is to see an ashcovered, lead-coloured Nuer after walking up to his middle in water. His head is also caked in adhesive masses of ash mixture, his face, and chest to his middle are of the whitey-grey of a horrid corpse, while below the waist he is a beautiful, glistening black ! It is to be hoped that the effect of the hair pomade is at least disinfectant, and that the absence of hair on the body of both sexes conduces to freedom from some classes of parasites.

Small boys crowded round one, laughing and joking ; young men and old warriors joined in investigations, never the sign of a liberty being taken ; and long conversations, with much emphasis and gesticulation, were alternated with expressions of friendliness and horrible smiles. Time after time, toward the end of my visit, a lanky fellow would approach, with a well-meaning grin all over his face, and from the heights far above me would bend and shout down in my face, " Ahai ow mazada !"

It sounded uncommonly like the word " murder," as the consonants were but slightly pronounced ; but his evident pleasure gave the lie to such a deduction. Learning that the meaning was an