initiation ceremony of girls at puberty, a season of rejoicing when the girl is initiated into all the secrets of marriage, amid songs and dances referring to the act of coition.  “The whole matter is looked upon as a matter of course, and not as a thing to be ashamed of or to hide, and, being thus openly treated of and no secrecy made about it, you find in this tribe that the women are very virtuous.  They know from the first all that is to be known, and cannot see any reason for secrecy concerning natural laws or the powers and senses that have been given them from birth.” (Zeitschrift fuer Ethnologie, 1898, Heft 6, p. 479.)

Of the Monbuttu of Central Africa, another observer says:  “It is surprising how a Monbuttu woman of birth can, without the aid of dress, impress others with her dignity and modesty.” (British Medical Journal.  June 14, 1890.)

“The women at Upoto wear no clothes whatever, and came up to us in the most unreserved manner.  An interesting gradation in the arrangement of the female costume has been observed by us:  as we ascended the Congo, the higher up the river we found ourselves, the higher the dress reached, till it has now, at last, culminated in absolute nudity.” (T.H.  Parke, My Personal Experiences in Equatorial Africa, 1891, p. 61.)

“There exists throughout the Congo population a marked appreciation of the sentiment of decency and shame as applied to private actions,” says Mr. Herbert Ward.  In explanation of the nudity of the women at Upoto, a chief remarked to Ward that “concealment is food for the inquisitive.” (Journal of the Anthropological Institute, 1895, p. 293.)

In the Gold Coast and surrounding countries complete nudity is extremely rare, except when circumstances make it desirable; on occasion clothing is abandoned with unconcern.  “I have on several occasions,” says Dr. Freeman, “seen women at Accra walk from the beach, where they have been bathing, across the road to their houses, where they would proceed to dry themselves, and resume their garments; and women may not infrequently be seen bathing in pools by the wayside, conversing quite unconstrainedly with their male acquaintances, who are seated on the bank.  The mere unclothed body conveys to their minds no idea of indecency.  Immodesty and indelicacy of manner are practically unknown.”  He adds that the excessive zeal of missionaries in urging their converts to adopt European dress—­which they are only too ready to do—­is much to be regretted, since the close-fitting, thin garments are really less modest than the loose clothes they replace, besides being much less cleanly. (R.A.  Freeman, Travels and Life in Ashanti and Jaman, 1898, p. 379.)

At Loango, says Pechuel-Loesche, “the well-bred negress likes to cover her bosom, and is sensitive to critical male eyes; if she meets a European when without her overgarment, she instinctively,