The Use Of The Great Toe

The negroes of the West Indies use the great toe constantly in climbing. Several years ago, while spending some time at one of the farnous resorts in Jamaica, I had an opportunity to observe the skill with which the black women, who do a great part of the menial labor, carried stone, mortar and other building materials on their heads to the top of a five story tower in a part of the hotel not theu finished. Much of the unerring accuracy with which they (women and girls) chased each other up and down the long ladders, with heavy loads skillfully poised on their woolly pates, was due to the firmnes3 with which they grasped each rang of the ladders with the great toe. They did not place the ball or the hollow of the foot on the rung, but the groove at the juncture of the great toe with the body of the foot, and they held fast by making the back of the other toes afford the other gripping surface. In mnch the same way the Abyssinian native cavalry grasp the etirrup. And I have seen a one armed Santo Domingan black, astride the uear ox in a wheel yoke, guiding a lead mule with a rein held between his great and second toes, while his only arm was devoted to cracking his teamster's whip. -