Some give the final reason for everything, 'Because Byamee say so.' In summer the blacks are great bathers, and play all sorts of games in the water.

Their soap is clay; they rub themselves with that, the women plastering it under their arms again and again; the little children rub themselves all over with it, then tumble into the water to wash it off.
In winter they forgo bathing, and rub themselves with liberal applications of grease.
The old blacks used to have very good teeth; they never ate without afterwards rinsing out their mouths, and sometimes munched up charcoal to purify them.

But the younger generation have discarded the mouth-rinsing habit, and not yet attained to a tooth-brush: result, gradual deterioration in teeth, a deterioration probably helped by the drinking of hot liquids.

Blacks of the old time drank nothing hot.
Perhaps, too, their tough meats gave muscular strength to their jaws.
To blacks, kissing is a 'white foolishness,' also handshaking; in olden times even to smell a stranger was considered a risk..