THE WEAKER SEX. 329 —<-known as Khor Kirshambe. No khor except Khor Ginetti 1s crossed all the way between Okkela and Bor, water being scarce along the whole route.

I could procure but little information about the Ber country (Baker’s Berri). ‘The language, the frisure, the practice of carrying two spears, the spears themselves, and the shields, which I had an opportunity of seeing, are identical with those of the Shuli country, so that Latuka must be considered as an encroachment on it, running into it from the north-east or north-north-east ; or it may be more correct to regard Latuka as the remains of a primitive population afterwards inundated by Shuh. The western frontier of the proper Latuka territory is formed by Khor Loddo, for the Liria district, though both © languages are spoken in it, belongs to the Bari and not to the Latuka.

The warriors of Okkela are estimated at 120 men: eighty young men, and forty who wear “ helmets and ivory bracelets,” that is, men quite grown up, besides about twenty grey-headed men, to whom no great respect is shown. I was told that each of the men possessed only five or six wives, for cattle are scarce, and sheep and lance-heads are not so cheap now as formerly. The price of a strong full-grown girl was formerly, and is still, where cows exist, twenty-two head of cattle ; here twenty sheep or goats and forty iron lance-heads are considered an equivalent ; in Lauda and the southern parts of the country forty molut Gron hoes). The women can hardly be called the weaker sex here ; they carry burdens that a man would shudder at. This is strikingly the case in water-carrying; the streams are often far away from the villages, so that it takes hours to carry a pitcher of water—a very large one, on account of the distance— to the houses situated on the high hills. Cooking, carrying supplies of meat from the forest, providing the family with fruits of Borassus, procuring grass for housebuilding, manufacturing all kinds of pottery except pipe-bowls, weeding, and harvesting, all devolve upon the women. Meat and porridge constitute the staple food. I saw no vegetables eaten except gourds and common purslane. The Borassus has been already _ mentioned.

There is a very extraordinary custom among the women here