creep under the body of a strong camel, believing
that the act of passing between the fore and hind
legs will endue her child with the strength of the
animal. Young infants are scored with a razor
longitudinally down the back and abdomen, to
improve their constitutions.
I engaged six strong Tokrooris—natives of Darfur
-—who agreed to accompany me for five months.
These people are a tribe of Mahometan negroes, of
whom I shall speak more hereafter ; they are generally
very powerful and courageous, and I preferred
a few men of this race to a party entirely composed
of Arabs. Our great difficulty was to procure a
slave woman to grind the corn and to make the
bread for the people,
No proprietor would let his slave on hire to go
upon such a journey, and it was impossible to start
without one; the only- resource was to purchase the
freedom of some woman, and to engage her as a servant
for the trip. Even this was difficult, as slaves
were scarce and in great demand : however, at last
I heard of a man who had a Galla slave who was
clever at making bread, as it had been her duty to
make cakes for sale in the bazaar upon market days.
After some delays I succeeded in obtaining an interview
with both the master and slave at the same
time ; the former was an Arab, hard at dealing, but,
as I did not wish to drive a bargain, I agreed to
the price, thirty-five dollars, VI. The name of the
woman was Barrake; she was about twenty-two
years of age, brown in complexion, fat, and strong ;
rather tall, and altogether she was a fine powerful-
looking woman, but decidedly not pretty; her hair
was elaborately dressed in hundreds of long narrow
curls, so thickly smeared with castor oil that the
grease had covered her naked shoulders; in addition
to this, as she had been recently under the
hands of the hairdresser, there was an amount of
fat and other nastiness upon her head that gave
her the appearance of being nearly grey.
I now counted out thirty-five dollars, which I
placed in two piles upon the table, and through the
medium of Mahomet I explained to her that she
was no longer a slave, as that sum had purchased
her freedom; at the same time, as it was a large
amount that I had paid, I expected she would remain
with us as a servant until our journey should
be over, at which time she should receive a certain
sum in money, as wages at the usual rate. Mahomet
did not agree with this style of address to a
slave, therefore he slightly altered it in the translation,
which I at once detected. The woman looked
frightened and uneasy at the conclusion; I immediately
asked Mahomet what he had told her.
“ Same like master tell to me! ” replied the; indignant
Mahomet. “ Then have the kindness to repeat
to me in English what you said to her,” I replied.
I tell that slave woman same like master’s word;
I tell her master one very good master, she Barrakd
one very bad woman; all that good dollars master
T 2