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Their half-clad forms bent in ungainly attitudes, forgetful in their sleep, their bodies crooked or supine, the instruments of music lying scattered in disorder; leaning and facing one another, or with back to back, or like those beings thrown into the abyss, their jewelled necklets bound about like chains, their clothes and undergarments swathed around their persons; grasping their instruments, stretched along the earth, even as those undergoing punishment at the hands of keepers, their garments in confusion, or like the broken kani flower; or some with bodies leaning in sleep against the wall, in fashion like a hanging bow or horn, or with their hands holding to the window-frames, and looking like an outstretched corpse.
Silver necklets covered their throats, long earrings dangled under the wool-embroidered kerchiefs bound about their temples with a twist of camel's hair, and below the cotton shifts fastened on their shoulders with silver clasps their legs were bare to the knee, or covered with leather leggings to protect them from the thorny bled.
It is a plant of wide range, for the bluish-grey seeds are said to be used in Arabia for necklets. In the idle days of the past the blacks were wont to enclose a single seed in a miniature basket woven of strips of cane for the amusement of infants probably the first of rattles.
The men, strong and stalwart, sat behind on short stools or lounged on the buttressed roots of the bread-fruit trees, clad like the women in narrow waist-belts of the long red dracæna leaves, with necklets of sharks' teeth, pendent chain of pearly shells, a warrior's cap on their well-shaped heads, and an armlet of native beans, arranged below the shoulder, around their powerful arms.
There were some, but not many, armlets, leglets, and necklets of iron wire polished to the appearance of silver. The women wore brief skirts of softened skins: the men carried a short shoulder cape, or simply nothing at all. Each man bore a long-bladed heavy spear. Before squatting down in front of whatever engaged his attention for the moment, the savage thrust this upright in the ground.
Precisely at seven o'clock we presented ourselves at the Commandant's, Mary looking very pretty in her transparent white dress, brilliant sack of Tunis silk, and necklets and bracelets of coral and palm-seeds. The little thing had such loving, dark eyes, such a soft bloom on her cheeks, and such a sweet mouth, that I could hardly blame the Général for wishing to have her sit beside him at dinner.
The girls, large-limbed, soft-skinned, and with delicately rounded figures, sat on the ground, laughing and talking, with their knees crossed under them; their wrists were encinctured with girdles of dark-red dracæna leaves, their swelling bosoms half concealed, half accentuated by hanging necklets of flowers.
A jeweller's catalogue provided a few minutes' lighter reading, and its diamond rings and its pearl and diamond necklets and pendants and brooches were so temptingly illustrated, that they awoke the present-giving instinct in the man's heart and he revolved the question whether etiquette would permit him to give Dora and Beatrice a necklet apiece for their pretty necks and Miss Bibby a chaste brooch.
Elaborate devices were tattooed upon the exposed parts of their bodies; a petticoat of finely-plaited cloth reached from waist to knee; beautiful necklets made from red and white coral hung round their necks; while their hair was frizzled like a mop upon their heads, powdered red or yellow.
At last, putting two necklets and two rings back into the jewel-case, she placed the rest in a little green box, and taking that and the envelope, went out. She called a hansom, drove to a post-office, and sent a telegram: PENDYCE, STOICS' CLUB. "Be at studio six to seven.
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