The women are content often with a rag for clothing. They wear a grass stem three inches long through the nose, and a dirty rag for an earring. The hair is matted with a mixture of oil and vegetable charcoal; and if a lady happen to be in mourning the same filthy compound is smeared over her face.
With the advent of white men this sad picture has begun to change. The Livingstone Inland Mission (American Baptists) and the International Association have stations among them; their transport and that of the Baptist Missionary Society (English) passes through the country. The people are coming forward as carriers; they sell their goats, fowls, etc., are getting cloth; and in this short time a change for the better is apparent. Here lies all the difference between the degraded and the higher types of the African. The intellect of the one is stagnant, while the other has everything to quicken it.