Page:Travel letters from New Zealand, Australia and Africa (1913).djvu/390

 British territory all over Africa In Mozambique we visited the public market, and found that many of the negro women had their faces whitened like circus clowns, in order to look like white people. Adelaide weighs only a hundred pounds, and has rather a small waist, and all the negro women thought her waist was disgracefully small. One of them asked if she might measure it with a string. Permission being granted, and the measurement made, the string was passed around, and attracted a babble of disgusted comment from black ladies with the middle-age spread Young chickens were sold at the market at eighteen cents each, and everything else was equally cheap. Mozambique is built on a coral island, three miles from the mainland, and everything is brought in by boats The Englishman is a grave sort of person, and has little sense of humor, but Sammy Marks, the theatrical man, made me laugh today. In walking about Mozambique, we came across a school in which forty children of all races were reciting in chorus to an Arab teacher seated on the floor. "Children," Mr. Marks said to them, "don't you know this is a free day? Sammy Marks is in town, and you can take your books and go home." Some of the children understood the words "free day," apparently, for after a little preliminary chatter, every child in the room dashed out the front door, leaving the teacher to wonder what had happened. The English are great in commerce and war, but I never before knew one who had a real sense of humor One of the passengers on the "Burgermeister" is a Frenchman, and as he sits at our table, we know him very well. He is