A MORU VILLAGE. 313 officer and fifty soldiers will certainly suffice to ensure order. What sufferings these poor people must have endured !

Biti is situated outside the district of Kederu, in the Mort country, which includes Moru-Kodé, or “northern” Mort, and Mort-Missa, or “southern” Moru, a distinct dialect being spoken in each of these divisions. Although the language is perfectly distinct, and belongs to the westerly group of the languages of our province, the frisure, ornaments, weapons, and dress, if one can speak of dress, are exactly identical with those of the Kederu. Most of the women are perfectly nude, only some few of them hanging a small leafy twig from the back of their girdles. It is curious to note that if one meets a company of such belles décolletées carrying water, they cover their faces with their disengaged hand. All that you see in Africa seems to prove that modesty is only a product of education.

The village of Biti is rather straggling, and contains two hundred and fifty to three hundred huts, together with their granaries. ‘The huts are usually built in groups of two and three, surrounded by small fences ; they have bell-shaped roofs, and are, on the whole, rather larger than those seen in Kedert. They are constructed, however, in the same neat manner, and have small square entrances, which can be closed by day from the outside, and by night from the inside, by a kind of lid. From a hygienic point of view, it would be interesting to know how much oxygen ig provided for the two or three persons to breathe who sleep in these hermetically sealed huts, in which a fire burns. Large baskets, plastered over with clay, placed upon platforms, about three feet high, and covered with conical straw lids, serve as granaries. Just now they contain reddish-white durrah and dokhn, which constitutes the chief article of food, and is eaten as porridge, served with vegetable sauces. Various species of gourds and Gynandropsis thrive everywhere, and provide the materials for these sauces; yams and other roots also find their way into the kitchen. The tobacco grown in this country (mashirr, or Nicotiana rustica) has yellow flowers, and is very strong. It is chewed as well as smoked, the former practice having probably been introduced by the Danagla. Disorder -and dirt rule throughout the whole village, except near the