fan-shaped straw screens, which are rented at the
rate of five paras per day (abont a farthing); beneath
these may be seen vendors of bntter and other grease,
contained in a large jar by their side, while upon
a stone before them are arranged balls of fat, which
are sold at five paras a lump. Each morsel is about
the size of a cricket ball: this is supposed to be the
smallest quantity required for one dressing of the
hair. Other screens are occupied by dealers in
ropes, mats, leathern bags, girbas or water-skins,
gum sacks, beans, waker, salt, sugar, coffee, &c. &c.
Itinerant smiths are at work, making knife-blades,
repairing spears, &c. with small boys working the
bellows, formed of simple leather bags that open
and close by the pressure of two sticks. The object
that draws a crowd around him is a professional
story-teller, wonderfully witty, no doubt, as being
mounted upon a camel from which he addresses his
audience, he provokes roars of merriment; his small
eyes, overhanging brow, large mouth, with thin and
tightly' compressed lips and deeply dimpled cheeks,
combined with an unlimited amount of brass, completed
a picture of professional shrewdness.
Camels, cattle, and donkeys are also exposed for
sale. The average price for a baggage camel
is twelve dollars; a hygeen, from thirty to sixty
dollars; a fat ox, from six to ten dollars (the dollar
at four shillings).
Katariff is on the direct merchants’ route from
Cassala to Khartoum. The charge for transport is
accordingly low; a camel loaded with six cantars
(600 lbs.) from this spot to Cassala, can be hired for
one dollar, and from thence to Souakim, on the Red
Sea, for five dollars; thus all produce is delivered
from Katariff to the shipping port, at a charge of
four shillings per hundred pounds. Cotton might
be grown to any extent on this magnificent soil,
and would pay the planter a large profit, were regular
steam communication established at a reasonable rate
-between Souakim and Suez.
There is a fine grey limestone in the neighbourhood
of Katariff. The collection of people is exceedingly
interesting upon a market day, as Arabs of all
tribes, Tokrooris, and some few Abyssinians, concentrate
from distant points. Many of the Arab women
would be exceedingly pretty were their beauty not
destroyed by their custom of gashing the cheeks in
three wounds upon either side; this is inflicted during
infancy. Scars are considered ornamental, and some
of the women are much disfigured by such marks
upon their arms and backs; even the men, without
exception, are scarified upon their cheeks. The inhabitants
of Kordofan and Darfur, who are generally
prized as slaves, are invariably marked, not only
with simple scars, but by cicatrices raised high
above the natural surface by means of salt rubbed
into the wounds; these unsightly deformities are
considered to be great personal attractions. The
Arab women are full of absurd superstitions; should
a woman be in an interesting condition, she will