EAR-STRETCHERS AND EAR-ORNAMENTS.
"Making war, stealing cattle from other tribes, plundering caravans, and similar predatory performances make up the life of a Masai warrior. When a man marries he gives up fighting and settles down into domestic ways, and thus it happens that all the warriors in Masai land are single men. Mr. Thomson says the Masai women are the handsomest of their sex in all Africa; they are slender and graceful, and distinctly ladylike both in manner and physique. They are dressed in bullock's hides, from which the hair has been scraped; their heads are shaved smooth, and sometimes their faces are painted white."
"I have read somewhere," said Fred, "that they wear great quantities of wire, the same as did the women of Chumbiri described by Mr. Stanley on the Congo."
A MASAI WARRIOR.
"That is true," Frank replied, "and the amount of wire worn by the Masai women is something wonderful. Telegraph wire is coiled around the lower limbs from the knees to the ankles, and around the arms both above and below the elbow. Round the neck more wire is coiled; it is arranged in a horizontal shape, so that the head seems to be sticking up through an inverted platter. The wire is put on when the women are young and is never removed, consequently the limbs present a withered appearance, the legs being of a uniform size from the ankle to the knee. The weight of iron wire worn by a Masai woman varies from ten to thirty pounds; in addition to this, she carries great quantities of beads and iron chains around her neck.