What is it that attracts? What power is it which buoys up the spirit under these painful operations? What is the secret which gives this insatiable desire for fleshy adornment?—a desire firmly rooted in the breast of every section of the community and shared by young and old alike. I well remember an orphan child, of about three summers, standing in the roadway crying bitterly, and upon my asking the cause, she told me that being an orphan no one had enough interest in her to cut a “coxcomb” on her forehead. Secreting a small bottle of red ink, I told her to sit on the table, and by a series of pinchings and finger-nail marks on her forehead, coupled with a smearing of red ink over my white hands, calmed the little mite into the belief that her heart’s desire was being gratified. After about ten minutes she was supremely happy in the thought that she too possessed a “coxcomb.” Her delight was unbounded, until the little mischief caught sight of her natural forehead in a mirror! [Sidenote: MARRIAGE AND TRIBAL MARKINGS] No doubt the principal motive for this passion is the love of personal adornment, of which the African assuredly does not retain a monopoly. Hitherto the hinterland tribes have had no access to those artificial aids to personal adornment, which are laid so temptingly before the youth of civilization. They will tell you they have had no alternative but to “adorn” their only garb—nature’s dusky skin, and none would deny, that there is a certain beauty even in these barbarous forms of embellishment. The critic may observe that the beauty of womanhood is obviously not enhanced by the bold use of the cicatrizing knife, but I would remind that critic that the wife without a body fairly well covered with cicatrization finds but scant favour with the other sex. In Africa the European youths of fashion have their counterpart, and in the direction of the most daintily cicatrized maiden, are cast the most amorous glances, and offers of handsome dowries to the admiring parents for the hand of their captivating daughter. Other reasons doubtless play a part, among them the question of tribal ownership of wives, and the necessity of placing a distinctive and indelible mark upon the body. Constant internecine warfare, too, demanded a mark which would make easy the task of discriminating the warriors of the respective combatants. Patriotism, relationship and love of adornment, combine in giving to the African the extraordinary fortitude which this prolonged operation demands, but the disappearance of internal warfare, the increasing importation of cheap jewellery and gaudy clothing, and the advance of Christian civilization, is robbing this custom of its _raison d’être_, and in another generation the little African boys and girls will only learn from books of this curious custom of their grandfathers and grandmothers, for cicatrization, as practised to-day, will have perished within another twenty-five years. (_b_) PERSONAL ADORNMENT