was impossible to guess, as now she seemed more like an old she-monkey than anything else.  The youngest was in the first flush of youth and grace.  The new old man was very tall, and had been very big and powerful, but he was now shrunken and grey with age.  He ordered his wives to sit down in the shade of a bush near our camp; this they did.  I walked towards the old man, when he immediately threw his aged arms round me, and clasped me rapturously to his ebony breast.  Then his most ancient wife followed his example, clasping me in the same manner.  The second wife was rather incommoded in her embrace by the baby in her arms, and it squalled horridly the nearer its mother put it to me.  The third and youngest wife, who was really very pretty, appeared enchantingly bashful, but what was her bashfulness compared to mine, when compelled for mere form’s sake to enfold in my arms a beautiful and naked young woman?  It was really a distressing ordeal.  She showed her appreciation of our company by the glances of her black and flashing eyes, and the exposure of two rows of beautifully even and pearly teeth.

However charming woman may look in a nude or native state, with all her youthful graces about her, still the poetic line, that beauty unadorned, adorned the most, is not entirely true.  Woman never appears so thoroughly charming as when her graces are enveloped in a becoming dress.  These natives all seemed anxious that I should give them names, and I took upon myself the responsibility of christening them.  The young beauty I called Polly, the mother Mary, the baby Kitty, the oldest woman Judy, and to the old man I gave the name of Wynbring Tommy, as an easy one for him to remember and pronounce.  There exists amongst the natives of this part of the continent, an ancient and Oriental custom which either compels or induces the wife or wives of a man who is in any way disfigured in form or feature to show their love, esteem, or obedience, by becoming similarly disfigured, on the same principle that Sindbad the Sailor was buried with his wife.  In this case the two elder wives of this old man had each relinquished an eye, and no doubt the time was soon approaching when the youngest would also show her conjugal fidelity and love by similar mutilation, unless the old heathen should happen to die shortly and she become espoused to some other, rejoicing in the possession of a full complement of eyes—­a consummation devoutly to be wished.

The position of this rock and watering-place I found to be in latitude 30 degrees 32’ and longitude 133 degrees 30’.  The heat still continued very great, the thermometer at its highest reading never indicating less than 104 degrees in the shade while we were here.  The flies at this place, and indeed for weeks before we reached it, were terribly numerous, and we were troubled also with myriads of the large March flies, those horrid pests about twice the size of the blowfly, and which bite men, horses,