The Sun.
London, England, 1863-10-23 00:00:00

AN AFRICAN GENTLEMAN,

After being duly scrubbed, the gentleman proceeds to
his robing court, where sundry leese beeee, like sea-chests,
contain his dresses and ornaments. Ho is extremely •
fastidious about the choice cf his toilette, opening, and per-
haps tying on, a dozen cloths before one suits his fancy.
He will kiss it in token of admiration or respect if it has be-
longed to har ancestors: A silk pocket handkerchief is then
folded triangularly and passed through a loop in the knife
scabbard—like the British sailor, they are abandoning the
clasp knife for the bowie form—which is thus attached to
the right side. His skin is then polished up with a little
palm oil, and his neck, wrists, and ankles are adorned with
strings of coral or beads, and substantial metal or ivory
rings, sometimes decorated with his English name cut out,
or "fixed" in various coloured tacks. Finally, his wool is
carded, with a comb made of bamboo, whose three or four
long prongs are fit only for a horse's mane, and a casquette
of broadcloth supplants the scarlet night-cap, fashionable
in former days. The kerchief intensied for hand use is
hung, cravat or scarf like, round the neck or writ t. Here,
as in the Highlands, pockets are wanting. The toilette
being thus finished, breakfast is served. It is a little
dinner, ordinarily consisting of fowl, fish, mashed yam,
soup, and tombo, or palm-wine, the latter, however, hard,
tasting like soapsuds, and very intoxicating. The cooking
is excellent when English dishes are not attempted.
The meal always concludes with an external applicaCen of
soap and water. After the breakfast tombo is drunk, the
warm and savoury nature of the food requiring copioue
draughts. It is a diuretic, and promotes perspiration, so
many a gallon will disappear in the course of a day. When
the natural appetite fails, they suck slices of the acid lime,
or chew kola nut, or eat ossessossa, a tasteless yellow
berry, with a large stone and little pulp, which i 3 said
to increase intoxication. Whex half-drunk the gentle-
man retires to a cool room, where, fanned by young
girls in a state of nature, he sleeps away the ev'try
hours of noon. After the siesta he receives or pays ".'isits to
his friends, being careful not to appear without armed slaves
carrying his large juju and his snuff-box. Fee does not dip
finger and thumb into the latter, but pour., it into the palm
of the hand, and leisurely makes up P
pinch. Whenever
he meets a white man he shakes he'ads, or rather cracks
fingers, holding the crackee's index between the forefinger
and thumb of the right hand—tle left is devoted to another
purpose—and loosing snaps them together. It is a knack
somewhat difficult to acquire properly, The inferior chiefs
and upper slaves are devoted to gambling; all cheat when
they can, and a man after losing his supplies, which repre-
sent coin, will part with his beads, armlets, and anklets,
next follow knife, nighicap, loin cloth, and lastly his wives,
relations, and himself. Some of them have proved adepts
at European games, esmially draughts. When the gentle-.
man stays at home, to performs upon some native instru-
ment, grinds a barrel-organ, or enjoys a musical box, a
throng of tis wives and chiliren peeping through the
doorwa?. Or he looks at conjuring tricks, and perchance
jokes with his jester, some slave, whose dry humour, sharp
tongue, salt wit, and power of mimicry have made him a
favourite. Africans are uncommonly keen in perceiving
and in caricaturing any ridicule—they have never, how-
ever, attained the dizzy height of art in the days of Thespis.
A dinner similar to breakfast is eaten at 4to 5 p.m. * *
It is wound up by smoking and drinking tombo, to,
which, however, at this hour, the damned distillation' is
preferred, and the gentleman turns in drunk at midnight.
The women and children pass their day in a far humbler
manner—they begin at dawn by washing in the creek,
they then repair to the artistess who performs the mysteries
of body painting. The favourite colour is blue; red, how-
ever, is also used. * * The head woman, whose face
and body, arms and legs, have thus been decorated, dresses
herself in beads and shawls, or fine cloths, and sallies out
after breakfast to see her friends. Sometimes she is re-
ceived with a nautch, than which no cancan can be
grosser—the more literal it is the more she enjoys it. *
* Women of the poorer sort pass their time in mak-
ing nets, hats, fishing-lines, and little mats. * * *
Ladies who are not favourites with the lords their hus-
bands, and all wives of poor men, perform servile work,.
fetching water, cutting and carrying fuel, fishing with
seines, and smoking and drying the proceeds.-- Wanderings
in Western Africa.