_Photo by_: _Rev. C. J.Dodds_ BOLOKI WOMEN PREPARING AN EVENING MEAL The woman on the right has a mortar and pestle for pounding boiled plantain. She has a broad band of hair shaved off in the style of the day. The walls show the split bamboos used at the outer lining of the hut, then there are an inch or two of grass and another lining of bamboos inside, and the whole is tightly laced to the uprights of the wall. ] The evening meal is practically the only meal of the day, and every effort is made to render it as tasty as possible with the limited ingredients at the disposal of the woman cook. Cassava figures as the principal article in every _menu_; and for this meal it is commonly prepared by soaking it for three days, and then after peeling, coring, and dividing it into quarters, it is steamed, and comes out looking white and appetizing. Either fish, or meat when procurable, is stewed in a small saucepan or roasted over the fire, or wrapped in leaves and covered with red-hot embers; but if there is neither fish nor meat, then a sauce of pounded leaves, red peppers, and palm-oil is concocted, and the whole is washed down with gulps of water. They prefer to keep sugar-cane wine for their drinking-bouts and for their cannibal feasts, the latter, in their view, demanding something better than water. The food is served first to the elders (male), and if visitors are present they take precedence according to their age. As a rule the members of a family are polite to one another, and any departure from the usual forms of courtesy is regarded with disapprobation by the other members of the family. Guests are treated with hospitality, and are protected by the family they are visiting; and I never knew a guest come to harm during a visit. Men and women do not eat together, as it is accounted immodest and indecent for a woman to eat with a man; and it is _infra dig._ for a man to partake of his food with a woman. They eat by themselves at some little distance, and usually out of sight and hearing of the men.