A STARTLING CEREMONIAL 275 it behind in the wind, only being retained in position by the bond of a cowrie circlet.

Here is a land where our suffragette friends might well indulge their energies, and perhaps achieve actual martyrdom in a protest against the use of Adam's dreadful jewellery.

At this moment, the responses ended, not knowing the degree of importance of the good Buz Nyal, but judging the time had come when he expected a present, and having nothing else handy, I placed a supply of white beads, known as niaow, in his hands. Baker recounts the mistake of pet ostriches in camp at Khartoum, who devoured these beads with alacrity under the false impression that they were dhurra. Buz Nyal's palsied hand could hardly retain them, and as a gift being obviously insufficient, the services of Belal, the interpreter, were called in. Fortunate it was for me that I did so, as the event proved. A vast talk was indulged in by Buz, mainly consisting of a recital of the importance and value of the presents made to other chiefs by the Government. Eventually, after lengthy discussion, a cloth sufficient to cover the trunk of the body when tied at two opposite corners and slung over the shoulder, half a dozen coils of brass wire, a string of large black beads spotted with white (gianator), and a couple of skeins of the blue ones, proved satisfactory, with a sack of the dhurra thrown in.

*' Halass " (Finished) was cried, formal friendship was declared, and holding Belal's hand, palm up-18—2