70 HABITS AND CUSTOMS.

considering that this position does not admit of the slightest change during sleep ; but as our belles willingly allow their ribs to be uncomfortably com* pressed by a tight corset to appear with a small waist, thus the women of Kordofan voluntarily submit to this torture to preserve their head-dress. The toilette of these children of nature requires, moreover, a much longer time than that of our European ladies, for the number of curls which are matted together with oil and grease and dust, until they form one dense mass, demand consider* able time for their dressing. As they have no combs, scissors, pincers, hair-pins or other implements of coiffure, one simple wooden peg answers the purpose of all these instruments, and we may easily imagine that a great deal of time is spent in arranging the hundreds of curls of their woolly hair. The women wear rings in their noses and ears, mostly of silver and brass, for those of gold have totally disappeared, or have become, at least, very rare. Several of them, indeed, wear bracelets and rings of silver round their ankles, the latter decoi-ated with small pieces of coral or small bells. The greater part of the bracelets worn are of horn or of ivory, frequently two inches in breadth, and the anklets are mostly of copper, sometimes even as much as one pound in weight. Round their necks and heads the women wind strings of beads of Bohemian glass ; the favourite colour is dark blue. Some of the ladies hang small round plates