ends the day, sleep weighing down his eyelids and his brains
singing with liquor. What he did yesterday that he does to-day,
and what he does to-day that he shall do to-morrow; his
intellectual life is varied only by a visit to town, where he
sells his choice skins, drinks a great deal too much rum, and
makes the purchases, ammunition and so forth, which are necessary
for the full enjoyment of home and country life. At times also he
joins a party of friends and seeks some happier hunting ground
farther from his campagne.

Meanwhile the women dawdle through the day, superintending their
domestic work, look after their children's and their own
toilette, tend the fire, attend to the cooking, and smoke
consumedly. The idle sit with the men at the doors of their huts;
those industriously disposed weave mats, and, whether lazy or
not, they never allow their tongues and lungs a moment's rest.
The slaves, male and female, draw water, cut fuel, or go to the
distant plantations for yams and bananas; whilst the youngsters
romp, play and tease the village idiot--there is one in almost
every settlement. Briefly, the day is spent in idleness, except,
as has been said, for a short time preceding the rains.

When the sun nears the western horizon, the hunter and the slaves
return home, and the housewife, who has been enjoying the
"coolth" squatting on her dwarf stool at her hut-door, and
puffing the preparatory pipe,--girds her loins for the evening
meal, and makes every one "look alive." When the last rays are
shedding their rich red glow over the tall black trees which hem
in the village, all torpidity disappears from it. The fires are
trimmed, and the singing and harping, which were languid during