The _dress_ of the native is very scanty: sometimes we see full-grown men and women whose wardrobe does not consist of a square foot of cloth. We have even seen the primitive fig-leaves not sewn together, but simply taken down for use, along with the tip of the branches on which they grew. One tribe, called the Mangoni, is fond of wearing skins. Other tribes towards the north of Lake Nyassa are still more primitive in their dress, or rather want of dress. The usual costume in the Blantyre district is a piece of calico about two yards broad, and rather longer, which is put round the middle of the body: the dress of a man does not differ from that of a woman, except that the latter may occasionally cover her breasts. The breasts and arms are usually left quite bare. There is no hat on the head, nor shoes on the feet. When we tried to translate the words, “If any man sue thee at the law and take away thy coat, let him have thy cloak also,” we found a difficulty, for if a native were stripped of _one_ garment, he would generally be left in a very helpless condition. The chiefs, or principal men, dress as the rest of the people, only they may have a few more folds of calico about their loins. In certain families, as in the Abanda family of the Wayao tribe, the chief of the district, or of a village, wears a band of cloth round his temples as a kind of crown. Before the arrival of the missionaries, shirts, although very rare, were not entirely unknown, and there existed a belief that while men might wear them, they were not the proper thing for women. Bark cloth (H) is extensively made and worn. The _tatoos_ (nembo) are sometimes dreadful inflictions, and when the larger marks are made the children roar as if they were distracted. The Angulu have marks like “flies,” the Wayao tribal mark is above the nose, the Anyasa make very large rude tatoos, which might be described in those words that Henry Salt, the Abyssinian traveller (1814), uses with reference to the Makua, a tribe not far distant, and much spoken of by the Wayao, under the name of Makuani. “The Makua practise tatooing so rudely that they raise the marks one-eighth of an inch above the surface.” He writes also:—“They file their teeth to a point, so that the whole set has the appearance of a coarse saw”. The natives here are fond of knocking out a front tooth in order to produce a beauty mark.