The dress of the women does not differ from that of the men of the lower orders, for they also wear a large cotton cloth bound round their loins, part of which is thrown over one shoulder. When they walk out they sometimes cover their heads with this cloth, but, whilst at work, they wind the whole of it round their loins. These melayeh, as they are termed, are at first white, then proceed through various gradations of colour, until they lastly become black, for they are seldom washed. In washing they make use of the bark of a tree called Egelit, instead of soap, and spread the linen on a piece of tanned leather, which is laid in a deep hole in the sand. The melayeh of the Dongolavi is washed with soap, and is generally decorated with a broad red border. It is also adjusted with a certain degree of care, in order to give their dress a more picturesque appearance. The women wear no covering on their heads, but roll their hair into curls, smearing them well with butter or oil made of sim-sim.[23] They anoint the skin of the whole body with a pomatum prepared of spikenard,[24] mahleb,[25] and tuffer;[26] these ingredients, rubbed down upon a stone, are called “telka.” The oils and butter give the hair a certain gloss, as long as it is free from dust; but the pomatum on the head soon becomes rancid, when it is impossible to remain long in proximity of one of these beauties, without offence to the olfactory nerves. Their eyelids are covered with powdered antimony.[27] Women who pride themselves on their head-dress, and do not wish to discompose their curls, make use of a small wooden bench, about a span in height, and hollowed out above, so as to admit the neck, as a pillow when they lie down to sleep, in order to avoid pressing their curls. It is the most incommodious pillow in the world, but the women, to gratify vanity, accustom themselves to it, as the slave becomes inured to his fetters, and sleep very well, notwithstanding the uncomfortable position they are obliged to adopt. An idea may be formed of the hardship they have at first to undergo, in considering that this position does not admit of the slightest change during sleep; but as our belles willingly allow their ribs to be uncomfortably compressed by a tight corset to appear with a small waist, thus the women of Kordofan voluntarily submit to this torture to preserve their head-dress. The toilette of these children of nature requires, moreover, a much longer time than that of our European ladies, for the number of curls which are matted together with oil and grease and dust, until they form one dense mass, demand considerable time for their dressing. As they have no combs, scissors, pincers, hair-pins, or other implements of _coiffure_, one simple wooden peg answers the purpose of all these instruments, and we may easily imagine that a great deal of time is spent in arranging the hundreds of curls of their woolly hair. The