The Birmingham age-herald., 1908-05-17
Bukoba. German East Afriea

Bukoba, German East Africa.
 HAVE just made big bargain in
 clothes. I purchased the wardrobe of A a girl of IS, and have it packed away in my trunk. The sale was made in the midst of crowd, and the price for the whole was equal to just Is cents of our money. The coinage was in cowry shells about as big as my thumbnail, and l had to pay 300 of these for, the costume. The dress had all the swish of a silk pett- coat; and it rustled as the young lady walked along with me to the town of Bukoba, where my silver money was changed into the shells
 Among the Bazbas.
 This maiden was a Baziba, and a very good looking type of the people who n- habit this part of German East Africa. I took her out of the crowd in which she stood, and, before she delivered the goods, had a photograph made. She stood just about four feet in height, and was as straight as an arrow. Her dress began the waist and reached to her ankles. Above it she had on only two strings around her neck. The dress was made Of the long hbers of the raphia palm. and it looked for all the world like so much timothy hay tied on by a string. There were so many strands of the fiber that they hid all of her person below the waist and they swa ayed this way and that as she walked.
 l was in company with Archdeacon Walker the famous Uganda missionary, and it was through him as an interpreter that she made the trade When l pointed to her dress and held up the silver coin her eyes brightened, and when the arch deacon told her that I was willing to pay cash she gladly assented. She borrowed piece of red calico about the size of a dinner napkin and wrapped it around her person. It was long enough to fall to the middle of her thighs and she fastened it over the left hip with a thorn She then took off her skirt of long fringe and handed it to me; and we went on to the village together to change the money to shells. On the way there the archdeacon talked with the girl. He told me she was trembling with excitement and delight at her bargain, and ventured she had never made as much 1 cents a day in her life, and probably not over 3. Here she was selling her old skirt for 800 shells equal to six or eight days of hard work When l gave her the shells she trotted off laughing, and then thanked us again and again for my great generosity In the whole transaction she displayed not the slightest immodesty, and at the close al though almost nude, was not ashamed.
 Clothing of Grass.
 lutSe bdZlDdS are all cldu Tn grass clothing. The men have grass or fiber cloaks which they wear around their shoulders. Some have shirts of grass fas- tened to a ring at the top through which the neck goes. and the unmarried girls have little fringes of grass or rapphia fiber, not over eight inches long, which they wear around their waists Outside this the girl may have a bracelet or two and some anklets of wire, but other wise she is bare.
 This matter of nudity, however is en- tirely governed by custom. On the other side of Lake Victoria, among the Kav- rondo, I saw thousands who go naked from one years end to the other, and who in their manners are just as decent and quite modest as our people at home. In Uganda, whence l came here. the women are clad from their chests to their feet in robes of bark cloth; and it is impolite for man to lift up his gown above the middle of the calf New ertheless, the Baganda are said to be much less virtuous than the naked Kavi- rondo, and I venture they will not rank higher in that respect than these grass clad Bazlbas.
 Death For Infdelisy.
 Indeed, of all the inhabitants around Lake Victoria these people are about the most rigid in regard to such matters, and offenses against the marriage tie are pur- ished severely The Baziba man and woman who attempt to live together with out being married take their lives in