The Abyssinian women are not kept in seclusion. Indeed, the liberty which they have would be considered license from a European point of view. But perhaps they had been shy of appearing before a band of strangers. Anyhow, I had had no opportunity of forming an opinion about the girls of Ethiopia while we travelled among the villages. They came in numbers to the combined church-service and dance which was in progress by the river, and I then found that some were very decidedly good-looking. I took a couple of snap-shots of one leading beauty, and the reader can determine for himself—or herself—if she is fascinating. Tastes differ in these matters; but it is fair to her to say that the charm of an animated, varying expression and of lithe, graceful movements is poorly represented in a photograph. I took my place among the crowd, not by preference—for the Habash resembles Gargonius more than Rufillus[74]—but that I might use my camera effectively. Some of the young girls had one-half of the head shaved, and this, I learned, was a sign that they had not yet “come out.” It corresponded to short frocks and hair down the back among us. Marriageable maidens had a tonsure—an odd contrast to our employment of the same sign, more especially as it further denotes that the damsel wishes to be mated. As far as I could discern the dances are arranged by the older women with the object of letting the girls be seen to advantage, and I noticed that the tonsures had all been neatly renewed for the occasion. The hair grows naturally in stiff ringlets, and these, springing up vigorously around the shaven circle, make it a very striking feature. The married women wear their hair plaited in rolls, which are saturated with grease.[75] The gathering broke up about eleven o’clock in the morning and the “congregation” left the bank of the stream. The “recessional” was the tinkling of a bell carried by a miserable-looking little boy, who was dressed in a red gown. He headed the party; then came the priest, bearing a cross, and behind him the laity. It was a quaint and interesting sight. [Illustration: INTERESTED IN THE PHOTOGRAPHIC CAMERA. _See p._ 102.] [Illustration: WOMEN DANCING AT THE FEAST OF THE EPIPHANY. _See p._ 110.] When the camp was quiet again I turned my attention to entomology and went out with a butterfly-net and a tin box to hold captures. Behind me was a boy carrying my gun—a sort of Friday to my Robinson Crusoe. We walked down the stream, and I saw many green swallow-tail butterflies, but they were much too quick to be caught by my pursuit. Presently I noticed that they were attracted by a certain red mossy growth in the water, so I waited near a patch of this. A butterfly hovered over it, and I made a dash for the specimen, and got it, but damaged it in the process. Then I laid it, in as life-like an attitude as I could give it, on the moss, and by this means secured four fine specimens which came to see what my decoy had found.