154 x 112 mm. Showing a group of Mendi women playing seghuras, with a crowd of spectators in the background: 'In some of the large towns I was regularly serenaded about six o'clock in the evening by three or four of the younger wives of the chief in front of my hut ...

The national music of the women is the seghura, which is a small hollow gourd, having over it a loosely fitting mesh of country cotton strung with hard split seeds, the long loose ends of the cotton being gathered up over the bulbous end of the gourd and held in the left hand, the right hand holding the narrow neck. Upon the gourd being shaken and the thread alternately being slackened and tightened, the sound given out by the seeds striking upon the dry wooden casing is very considerable, but it can be modulated at the will of the performer, and is by no means inharmonious. At all native festivities, where women are present, the seghura is to be heard, and when three or four are being shaken together, the noise though loud is not harsh; it is very effective, and is greatly appreciated by the natives.' (Alldridge 1901, page 122).