"A few of the ladies adopt a curious custom of attaching the hair to a hoop which encircles the head, giving it somewhat the appearance of the glory round the head of the Virgin. Others wear an ornament of woven hair and hide adorned with beads. The hair of the tails of buffaloes, which are to be found farther east, is sometimes added; while others weave their own hair on pieces of hide into the form of buffalo horns, or make a single horn in front.
"Many tattoo their bodies by inserting some black substance beneath the skin, which leaves an elevated cicatrix about half an inch long; these are made in forms of stars, and other figures of no particular beauty."
A little to the southward he found natives who had not been visited by the slave dealers to any great extent, rather timid, but civil. Of these he gives the following account:—
"The same olive color prevailed. They file their teeth to a point, which makes the smile of the women frightful, as it reminds one of the grin of an alligator.
"The inhabitants throughout this country exhibit as great a variety of taste as appears on the surface of society among ourselves. Many of the men are dandies; their shoulders are always wet with the oil dropping from their lubricated hair, and everything about them is ornamented in one way or another. Some thrum a musical instrument the livelong day, and, when they wake at night, proceed at once to their musical performance. Many of these musicians are too poor to have iron keys to their instruments, but make them of bamboo, and persevere though no one hears the music but themselves.
"Others try to appear warlike by never going out of their huts except with a load of bows and arrows or a gun ornamented with a strip of hide for every animal they have shot; and others never go anywhere without a canary in a cage. Ladies may be seen carefully tending little lapdogs, which are intended to be eaten.
"The villages are generally in forests, and composed of groups of irregularly planted brown huts, with banana and cotton trees, and tobacco, growing around. There is also at every hut a high stage erected for drying manioc roots and meal, and elevated cages to hold domestic fowls.
"Round baskets are laid on the thatch of the huts for the hens to lay in, and on the arrival of strangers, men, women, and children ply their calling as hucksters with a great deal of noisy haggling. All their transactions are conducted with civil banter and good temper."