Nothing simpler than the Fan toilette.  Thongs and plaits of goat, wild cat, or leopard skin gird the waist, and cloth, which is rare, is supplied by the spoils of the black monkey or some other “beef.”  The main part of the national costume, and certainly the most remarkable, is a fan of palm frond redolent of grease and ruddled with ochre, thrust through the waist belt; while new and stiff the upper half stands bolt upright and depends only when old.  It suggests the “Enduap” (rondache) of ostrich-plumes worn by the Tupi-Guarani barbarians of the Brazil, the bunchy caudal appendages which made the missionaries compare them with pigeons.  The fore part of the body is here decked with a similar fan, the outspread portion worn the wrong way, like that behind.  The ornaments are seed-beads, green or white, and Loangos (red porcelain).  The “bunch” here contains 100 to 120 strings, and up country 200, worth one dollar; each will weigh from one to three, and a wealthy Fan may carry fifteen to forty-five pounds.  The seed-bead was till lately unknown; fifteen to twenty strings make the “bunch.”  There is not much tattooing amongst the men, except on the shoulders, whilst the women prefer the stomach; the gandin, however, disfigures himself with powdered cam-wood, mixed with butter-nut, grease, or palm oil—­a custom evidently derived from the coast-tribes.  Each has his “Ndese,” garters and armlets of plaited palm fibre, and tightened by little cross-bars of brass; they are the “Hibas” which the Bedawin wear under their lower articulations as preservatives against cramp.  Lastly, a Fetish horn hangs from the breast, and heavy copper rings encumber the wrists and ankles.  Though unskilful in managing canoes—­an art to be learned, like riding and dancing, only in childhood—­many villagers affect to walk about with a paddle, like the semi-aquatic Kru-men.  Up country it is said they make rafts which are towed across the stream by ropes, when the swiftness of the current demands a ferry.  The women are still afraid of the canoe.

All adult males carry arms, and would be held womanish if they were seen unweaponed.  These are generally battle-axes, spears cruelly and fantastically jagged, hooked and barbed, and curious leaf-shaped knives of archaic aspect; some of the latter have blades broader than they are long, a shape also preserved by the Mpongwe.  The sheaths of fibre or leather are elaborately decorated, and it is chic for the scabbard to fit so tight that the weapon cannot be drawn for five minutes; I have seen the same amongst the Somal.  There are some trade-muskets, but the “hot-mouthed weapon” has not become the national weapon of the Fan.  Bows and arrows are unknown; the Nayin or cross-bow peculiar to this people, and probably a native invention, not borrowed, as might be supposed, from Europe, is carried only when hunting or fighting:  a specimen was exhibited in London with the gorillas.  The people are said sometimes to bend it with the foot or feet like the