“After travelling a long way they met a palm-wine gatherer sitting in a palm-frond drinking-shelter, who welcomed them and promised to get them some fresh palm-wine. He took his climbing-hoop and together they went to the palm-tree. Before ascending the tree the twins were astonished to see the man take out all his bones and lay them on one side, and then he climbed the tree and brought down a small calabash of palm-wine for the boys, picked up his bones and put them all back again in their places. The lads asked him why he removed his bones before ascending the palm-tree.
“‘Oh,’ he said, ‘if I were to fall I should break them, so I always leave my bones on the ground, and then, should I fall, nothing will be broken.’ They drank his palm-wine, thanked him, and after resting a while started again on their journey.
“They had not travelled very far when they met two men walking towards them whose feet were turned backwards. The twins asked them what accident had twisted their feet in that way.
“They replied: ‘It is no accident, but we turn our feet round when travelling to keep our naked toes from knocking against the stones in the road.’
“The twins had hardly recovered from their surprise when they came across some men whose knees were behind, and others whose arms were at the back, and others again whose faces were at the back of their heads.
“They inquired the reason for these strange things, and the first said: ‘We have our knees at the back of our legs so that when we fall they will not be cut by the stones.’
“The next replied: ‘We have our arms behind us so that if we fall backwards they will hold us up, and we shall not hurt ourselves.’
“And the last laughingly said: ‘Oh, we have our faces behind our heads so that the long grass by the sides of the roads will neither cut them nor get into our eyes as we push our way through it.’
“‘Well, this is a funny country,’ cried the twins in amazement, ‘people seem to do whatever they like with their bodies.’
“On they went again, and during the afternoon they reached the bank of a river, where they rested under a shady tree. While sitting there they saw men and women, boys and girls coming down the hill to bathe, and they noticed that all of them took out their eyes before they entered the water and left them on the bank with their clothes. They inquired the reason for this wonderful thing, and one of the men said: ‘You see, we bathe here with our mothers, wives and sisters--men and women, boys and girls altogether, hence to retain our self-respect and modesty we always take out our eyes before bathing.’ The twins were no longer astonished at anything they saw and heard, so they silently assented to what the man told them.