ABSTRACT
These followers consisted of (1) women (wives, concubines, and female slaves), children, and men slaves; (2) the similar establishments of those who had died or been killed in the Sudan; and (3) the Lendu, to whom I have already alluded.1 Thus, individual officers of the higher ranks would have a following (including the establishments of deceased relatives or friends, called Aitham) of from 50 to 100 souls, and even more. The superior officers were dressed in cloth woven by their slaves from cotton grown by themselves, and this was a strong serviceable fabric. The bulk of the men were dressed in long shirts made of prepared ox^hides,
while the women wore only a thick fringe of black strings suspended from the waist, like the pictures of Friday in ' Robinson Crusoe,' which served fairly adequately the purposes of modesty and decency. Some of the poorer Lendu women and slaves, however, could not even afford so meagre an outfit as this, and were contented with a band round the waist, in which was inserted (before and behind) a bunch of green leaves, or even of flowers ! Their hair they wore mopfashion like the women of Suakim, and it was often matted with grease and plaited into tassels.
