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Upon each of her plump, finely- shaped arms, between the shoulder and the elbow, she wore four or five massive armlets of peculiar but by no means unskilled workmanship; and lastly, round each ankle she wore a single anklet of similar workmanship.
They certainly do not dress warm. Around their arms and legs are all sorts of brass and nickel wire wound in scores of circles. Chains of wire and necklaces of beads encircle the women's throats and elephant ivory armlets are often clasped about the arms so tight that it would seem that the natural circulation would be hopelessly retarded.
Out in the fields he could see still other women hoeing, weeding, or gathering. All wore strange protruding girdles of dried grass about their hips and many were loaded with brass and copper anklets, armlets and bracelets. Around many a dusky neck hung curiously coiled strands of wire, while several were further ornamented by huge nose rings.
Their mode of life was primitive, their dwellings, with the exception of the religious houses and the abodes of a few of the great nobles, simple in the extreme; but they possessed vessels of gold and silver, armlets, necklaces, and ornaments of the same metals, rich and brightly coloured dresses, and elaborate bed furniture while their tables and household utensils were of the roughest kind, and their floors strewn with rushes.
A fillet is worn upon the head, which is often highly ornamented. Earrings adorn the ears; bracelets, sometimes accompanied by armlets, the arms. A sword is generally worn at the left side. The Vizier is ordinarily represented in one of two attitudes. When the Vizier assumes this energetic posture he is commonly either introducing prisoners or bringing in spoil to the king.
One of the slave-girls sat down on the divan, and took up a double flute; while the other rose, and accompanying the plaintive dreamy air with a slow dance, and delicate twinklings of her silver armlets and anklets, and the sistrum which she held aloft, she floated gracefully round and round the floor and sang Why were we born but for bliss? Why are we ripe, but to fall?
Within it sat two Indians, not the dark creatures we had grown familiar with down the river; these also were nearly nude, but with the picturesque nudeness that served only to set off the ornaments with which they had adorned themselves necklaces of shells, wristlets and armlets of bright metal, wreaths of gorgeous flowers and the gaudy plumage of the flamingo.
And here and there, in the midst of this hurly-burly, and seemingly undisturbed by it, sat great groups of natives on the bare stone floor, young, slender brown women, old, gray wrinkled women, little soft brown babies, old men, young men, boys; all poor people, but all the females among them, both big and little, bejeweled with cheap and showy nose-rings, toe-rings, leglets, and armlets, these things constituting all their wealth, no doubt.
They were loaded with necklaces, bracelets, armlets, and anklets, composed of coral, amber, and fine glass-beads, interspersed with beads of gold and silver. These are their wealth and their pride. Some had little children, whose only covering was strings of beads round the waist, neck, ankles, and wrists: an elder girl of about ten years had a small cloth about her loins.
"I tore at the chain until blood did ooze from my flesh. Aye, and the gods did see my plight. My weapons had the hand of Rome taken save a knife hid in my tunic. Shortly was I to be taken to the chief to be robbed of my armlets. Then did all the gods show me favor, for as I went into the tent the chief was called out. Save for the time an eye doth twinkle was he called out.
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