Rensselaer Semi-Weekly Republican, Volume 20, Number 100, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 25 August 1899 — TOILETS OF AFRICAN BELLES. [ARTICLE]

TOILETS OF AFRICAN BELLES.

Being Without Stockings, They Color Their Liaabo with Bod Paint. Lieutenant Hourst of the French army has published a lively personal narrative of his recent explorations In West Africa. With four white com-I panions he plnckily sailed down the Niger River in an aluminum sailing-' boat of about seven feet beam, managing to carry her and her smaller consorts, manned by friendly natives, the whole distance from Timbuctoo, j past Say and Bussa, to the sea without serious accident or loss of life. Being j a Frenchman, the most amusing parts of his book are devoted to descriptions of Negridan ladles, whom he studied along the river banks. He was not captivated by their beauty. Indeed, he compares them to Durham oxen, for negresses, “like English women, when they are ugly at all, are really revoltingly ugly.” The corpulent matrons of the Niger eagerly clad themselves in yards upon yards of cheap Paris velveteen, but there were girls of more slender make, whose sole attempt at dressing was staining their legs to the knees with rocou or red dye, “which gives them the appearance of wearing nothing but light red stockings.” The gay lieutenant confesses that he was confused as a shy Englishman at the unusual sight; but one of the red-legged beauties, noticing his embarrassment, remarked very sensibly, “Are we so badly made that we need hide ourselves? All In good time. When we are old like our mothers we will wear clothes.” The men folks likewise have their amusing traits. A declaration of war was one day brought to the lieutenant’s boat While it was being translated M. Hourst covertly watched the ambassador. After delivering his message be had prudently sought refuge behind a piece of rock, but finding that no notice was taken of him, he peeped out first with one eye, then with both eyes, and finally ventured Into the open with the plaintive interrogtory: “Is there any hope of my getting a pair of breeches?”