Page:Travels in West Africa, Congo Français, Corisco and Cameroons (IA travelsinwestafr00kingrich).pdf/255

 the Mission Évangélique in this affair. I think these things are one of the factors producing the well-known torpidity of the mission-trained girl; and they should be suppressed in her interest, apart from their appearance, which is enough to constitute a hanging matter. Their formation is this—a yoke round the neck and shoulders fastens at the back with three buttons—two usually lost; from this yoke protrude dwarf sleeves, and round its lower rim, on a level with the armpits, is sewn on a flounce, set in with full gathers, which falls to the heels of the wearer. Sometimes this flounce is sewn on with a chain-stitch machine, whereby I once saw a dreadful accident on the Leeward Coast. In church a limb of a child, seeking for amusement during the long extemporary prayer of its pastor, came across a thread of white sticking out from the back of the yoke of the Hubbard of the woman in front of her, and pulled it out by the yard. Of course, when the unconscious victim rose up, the whole of what might be called the practical part of her attire subsided on to the floor. This is only an occasional danger; but the constant habit of the garment is to fall forward and reap the dirt whenever the wearer stoops forward to do anything, going into the fire, and the cooking, and things in general, and impeding all rapid movement. These garments are usually made at working parties in Europe; and what idea the pious ladies in England, Germany, Scotland, and France can have of the African figure I cannot think, but evidently part of their opinion is that it is very like a tub. I was once helping to unpack a mission box. "What have they sent out these frills for palm-oil puncheons for?" I inquired of my esteemed friend, the lady missionary. "Don't be more foolish than you can help," she answered. "Don't you see the sleeves? They are Hubbards." I was crushed; but even she acknowledged that it was trying of the home folk to make them like that, all the more so because their delusion on the African figure was not confined to the making of Hubbards, but extended to the making of shirts and chemises. There is nothing like measurements in ethnology, so I measured and found one that with a depth of thirty inches had a breadth of beam of forty-two inches; one with a depth of thirty-six