TRAVELS IN AFRICA. O

Tallabunchia, which we also visited, is si-

tuated on the north bank of the river, about

four miles above Sandy Island, in a plain, beau-

tifully shaded with lofty palm trees, and a

great profusion of orange, lime, plantain, and

bananas. The town is straggling and irregular,

and contains about 200 inhabitants. The

houses are about sixteen feet high, and divided,

by a partition of split cane, into two apart-

ments, one of which serves as a store for their

rice, &c. and the other for a dwelling. The men are strong and well formed, but of an ex-

tremely savage appearance ; their whole apparel

consists of a fathom of cotton cloth wrapped

round their waists ; they practise cutting the

incisor teeth and tattooing the breasts and

arms; holes are pierced through the whole

circle of the ear, in which are inserted bits of a

coarse kind of grass. The dress of the women is

still less decent or becoming ; a strip of cotton

bound round the loins, in the shape of what

surgeons call a T bandage, is their only cover-

ing ; a band of twisted grass round the upper

parts of the thigh, one immediately above, and

another below the knee, with one over the

ankle, constituted the female ornaments. The

children were quite naked, and had large cop-

per rings hanging from the cartilage of the nose.

On the morning of the l^th. Captain Camp-