5
468 WEST AFRICA,
aquiline nose. The complexion is somewhat lighter than that of the surrounding Niam-Niams and Negroes. The beard also is longer than amongst most Africans, while thousands are noted for an almost white skin and light hair, although kinky like that of other Negroes. Certainly nowhere else is the relative proportion of albinos so great as amongst the Monbuttus, who are otherwise distinguished by their long and somewhat slender extremities, muscular frames, and marvellous agility. Faithful to their ancestral customs, all the men wear a dress made from the bark of the fig-tree, to which time imparts a glossy appearance, and which is wound in graceful folds round the legs and body and fastened to the waist by ox-hide thongs ornamented with copper. The women’ wear a simple loin-cloth, end in ser ** -ven this is dispensed with, or replaced by a graceful network
- Fig. 237.—Curei Whole body is painted over with stars, crosses,
sd. suchlike designs regularly disposed, and at
~ of fresh patterns.
antelone; but they
, and their
1s, with the
‘d over two ,brain. The
“ves are not
a “ee foremost
edged word, sveloped, and 180 Miles. the Nubians, y, the natives
ance, bravely memorable expedition, the subsequent journeys of Bohndorff, Lu; id the wifeme
and Casati added details of a secondary interest only to the ae her personal information supplied by that pioneer. But it is otherwise with J W.. Neer the publication of which must certainly be regarded as a Pearsring ill event of primary importance for our knowledge of this part of the continent. Of equal if not greater importance are the data supplied by the expedition undertaken in 1887 by Stanley, to force the passage from the Congo to the Upper Nile for the purpose of relieving Emin Bey’s Egyptian forces, stationed at Wadelai, and cut off from the northern route by the revolt in Eastern Sudan.
The Welle of the Niam-Niams, the Nomayo of the Monbuttus, the Bahr-el- Makua of the Arabs, rises under the name of Kibali in the uplands skirting the
Eact of Greenwich
_
