Page:Travels to Discover the Source of the Nile - In the Years 1768, 1769, 1770, 1771, 1772, and 1773 volume 1.djvu/414

304 which they divide upon the crown of their head. It is black and bushy, and, although sufficiently long, seems to partake of the woolly quality of the Negro. Their head is bound round with a cord or fillet of the doom leaf, like the ancient diadem. The women are generally ill-favoured, and go naked like the men. Those that are married have, for the most part, a rag about their middle, some of them not that. Girls of all ages go quite naked, but seem not to be conscious of any impropriety in their appearance. Their lips, eye-brows, and foreheads above the eye-brow, are all marked with stibium, or antimony, the common ornament of savages throughout the world. They seemed to be perfectly on an equality with the men, walked, sat, and smoked with them, contrary to the practice of all women among the Turks and Arabs.

found no provisions at Sibt, and the water very bad. We returned on board our vessel at sun-set, and anchored in eleven fathom, little less than a mile from the shore. About eight o'clock, two girls, not fifteen, swam off from the shore, and came on board. They wanted stibium for their eye-brows. As they had laboured so hard for it, I gave them a small quantity, which they tied in a rag about their neck. I had killed three sharks this day; one of them, very large, was lying on deck. I asked them if they were not afraid of that fish? They said, they knew it, but it would not hurt them, and desired us to eat it, for it was good, and made men strong. There appeared no symptoms of jealousy among them. The harbour of Sibt is of a semi-circular form, screened between N. N. E. and S. S. W. but to the south, and south west, it is exposed, and therefore is good only in summer.

Rh