Ashtabula telegraph. (Ashtabula, Ohio) 1874-1880, 1879-11-14

ten about African villages, yet am sure
few of those at home have ever compre-
hended the reality. l now propose tc
lay it before them in this sketch of 8
village in the district of Uhombo. The
village consists of a number of low, conf
cal grass huts, ranged round circular
common, in the center OF which are
three or four fg-trees, kept for the
double purpose of supplying shade to
the community and bark-cloth to the
chief. The doorways to the huts are
very low, scarcely thirty inches high.
The common fenced round by the grass
huts shows plainly the ochreeus color of
the eOil, and it is so well trodden that
not grass-blade thrives upon it.
On presenting myself in the common,
1 attracted out of doors the owners and
ordinary Inhabitants of each hut, until I
found myself the center of quite a prom
iscueus population of naked men, wo-
men, children, and infants. Though
had appeared here for the purpose of
studying the people of Uhombo and
making treaty of friendship with the
chief, the villagers seemed to think 1
had come merely to make free ex-
hibition of myself as some natural mon
strosity.
l saw before me over hundred be-
ings of the most degraded, unpresenta-
BILE type it is possible to conceive; and
though l knew quite well that some
thousands of years ago the beginning of
this wretched humanity and myself
were one and the same, a asneaking dis
inclination to believe it possessed me
strongly, and 1 would even now sub
scribe some small amount of silver
money for him who could but assist me
to controvert the discreditable fact.
But common sense tells me not to take
into undue consideration their squalor,
their ugliness, or nakedness; but to
guage their true position among the hu-
man race by taking view of the culti-
vated fields and gardens of Uhombo,
and I am compelled to admit that these
debased specimens of humanity only
plant and SOW such vegetables and grain
as myself should cultivate, were I com
PEELED to provide for my own sustenance.
[ see, too, that their huts, though of
grass, are almost as well made as the
materials will permit; and indeed, l
have slept in worse. SpeakaA4th them
in their own dialect of the law of neun
and taL,rn, and it will soon appear that
they are intelligent enough upon that
point. Moreover, the muscles, tissues,
and fbers of their bodies, and all the
organs of sight, hearing, smell, or motion,
are as well developed as in US. Only in
Taste and judgment, based upon larger
experience, in the power of expression,
IN morals, and Intellectual culture are
we superior.
I strive therefore, to interest myself
in my gross and yudely-shaped brothers
and sisters. Almost bursting into laugh
at the absurditY, I turn towards an in
,lividual whose age marks him out as
nTe to whom respect is due, and say to
him, after the common manner of greet
ing:
my brother, sit you down by me on
this mat, and let us be friendly and
sociable." And as 1 say it thrust into
his wide open hand 20 cowries, the cur
rency of the land. One look at his hand
as he extended it, made me think
could carve better-looking hand out of
piece of rhinoceros hide.
While speaking, I look at his face,
which is like an ugly and extravagant
mask, clumsily manufactured from some
strange, dark-brown, coarse material.
The lips proved the thickness of skin
which Nature had endowed him with.
and by the obstinacy with which they
refused to meet each other, the form of
the mouth was but ill-defned, though
capacious and garnished with its full
compliment of well-preserved teeth.
His nose was so fat that inquired in
perfectly innocent manner as to the
reason of such feature.
3 "Ah 70 said he, with a shy laugh, 'it is
the fault of my mother, who, when I
was young, bound me too tight to her
back" H
His hair had been compelled to obey
the capricious fashion of his country,
and was therefore, worked up in fuTTows
and ridges and central cones, bearing a
curious resemblance to the formation of
the land around Uhombo. l wonder if
the art grew by perceiving Natures
fashion and the mold of his country.
Descending from the face, which,
crude, large-featured, rough-hewn as it
was, bore witness to the possession OF
much shy humor and kindly disposition,
my eyes fastened on his naked body.
Through the ochreous daubs detected
strange freaks of pTickling on it Of cir
cles and squares and crosses, and traced
with wonder the many hard lines and
FUCKERS created by age, weather, i'll
usage, and rude keeping.
His feet were monstrous abortlons,
with soles as hard as hoefs; and his legs
as high up as the knees we're Plastered
with successive strata of dirt. His loin-
cover, or the queer "girding tackle"
need not be described. They were alb
solutely appalling to good taste, and the
most ragged British beggar or Neapoli-
tan lazzarone is sumptuously, nay regally
clothed, in comparison to this 'king" in
Uhombo.
If the old chief appeared SO unpre-
possessing, how can 1 paint without
Ofense my humber brothers and sisters
who stood round US? As looked at
the array of faces, could only comment
to myself: Ugly-uglier-ugliest. AS I
looked at their nude and filthy bodies,
and the enormous dugs which hung
down the bosoms of the women, and
the general indecency of their naked
ness, l calculated Fearful" as the sum
total of what I might with propriety say
and what, indeed, is sufficiently de-
scriptive.