Page:A pilgrimage to my motherland.djvu/63

This page has been validated.
54
A PILGRIMAGE

beard, but the eye-brows, within the nostrils, (the na-tive razors are adapted to this,) and frequently the entire head. Many leave a strip of hair from the fore-head, over the crown of the head, down to the back of the neck. The Mohammedans leave also a little tuft of hair on the chin. We met two or three men at Ilorin with whiskers. The margin of the eye-lids is blackened with pulverized sulphuret of antimony, which every native carries about with him for the purpose. The women dye the palm of the hands, finger-nails and feet with ground camwood. Sometimes when about to participate in religious observances, their entire person is colored in this way. They pay great attention to the teeth, using the chewed ends of certain roots for the purpose of brushes, as do the people of the West-Indies, where the custom was doubtless introduced by Africans. Except some little children, we met nobody who did not use tobacco. It is used in the form of snuff, not taken into the nostrils, but on the tongue. A small quantity of benin-seed and of lubi, a native impure carbonate of soda, is ground with the snuff. They use the Brazilian roll-tobacco, about twenty per cent of the weight of which is treacle. There are a few who smoke, principally emigrants from Sierra Leone, Cuba and the Brazils.