much, having neither boats nor iron.

The inhabitants of this country are the miserablest people in the world.
The Hodmadods of Monomatapa, though a nasty people yet for wealth are
gentlemen to these, who have no houses and skin garments, sheep,
poultry, and fruits of the earth, ostrich eggs etc. as the Hodmadods
have; and setting aside their human shape, they differ but little from
brutes. They are tall, straight-bodied and thin, with small long limbs.
They have great heads, round foreheads and great brows. Their eyelids
are always half closed to keep the flies out of their eyes, being so
troublesome here, that no fanning will keep them from coming to one's
face, and without the assistance of both hands to keep them off, will
creep into one's nostrils and mouth too, if the lips are not shut very
close. So that from their infancy being thus annoyed with these insects,
they never open their eyes as other people; and therefore they cannot
see far, unless they hold up their heads, as if they were looking at
somewhat over them.

They have great bottle noses, pretty full lips, and wide mouths. The two
fore-teeth of their upper jaw are wanting in all of them, men and women,
old and young; whether they draw them out, I know not, neither have they
any beards. They are long-visaged, and of a very unpleasing aspect,
having no one graceful feature in their faces. Their hair is black,
short and curled, like that of the negroes, and not long and lank like
the common Indian. The colour of the skin, both of their faces and the
rest of their body, is coal black, like that of the negroes of Guinea.

They have no sort of clothes, but a piece of the rind of a tree tied
like a girdle about their waists, and a handful of long grass or three
or four small green boughs, full of leaves, thrust under their girdle to