vermin, all this beauty fudde'nly difappears j bare, fcorched
Nubia returns, and all its terrors o f poifonous winds and
moving fands, glowing and ventilated witli fultry blafts,
which are followed by a troop o f terrible attendants,
epilepfies, apoplexies, violent fevers, obftinate agues, and
lingering, painful dyfenteries, itill more obftinate and
mortal.
"Watt and treafon feem to be the only employment o f
this horrid people, whom Heaven has feparated, by almoft
impaflable deferts, from the reft o f mankind, confining them
to an accurfed fpot, feemingly to give them earneft in time
o f the only other worfe which he has referved to them
fo r an'eternal hereafter.
T he drefs o f Sennaar is very fimple. It confifts .of a long:
ihirt o f blue Surat cloth called Marowty^ which- covers
them from the lower part o f the neck down to their
feet, but does not conceal the neck itfe lf; and this is
the only difference between the men’s and the women’s
drefs; that o f the w omen covers their neck altogether, being
buttoned like ours. The men have fometimes a fafli tied
about their middle ; and both men and women go barefooted
in the houfe,; even thofe of the better fort o f people.
Their floors are covered with Perfian carpets, efpecially, the
women’s apartments. In fair weather, they wear fandals;
and without doors they ufe a kind o f wooden patten, very
neatly ornamented with ihells. -In the greateft heat at
noon, they order buckets o f water to be thrown upon them
inflead o f bathing. Both men and women anoint them-
felves, at leaff once a-day, with camels greafe mixed with
civet, which they imagine foftens their ikin, and preferves
them
j them: from cutaneous eruptions, o f which they are fo fear-
, fu l, that the fmallèft pimple'in any vifible part o f their bb-
• dy keeps them in the houfe till it difappears : For thé
fame reafon, though they have a clean fliirt every day, they
ufe one dipt in greafe to lie in all night, as they have no
covering but this, and lie upon a bull’s hide,: tanned, and
.very miich foftened b y this confiant; greafing, and at the
fame , time v e ry ’cool, though it occafiohs a fmell that no
wafliing can free them from.
T he principal diet o f the poorer fort is millet, made into
bread or flour. The rich make a pudding o f this, mailin
g the flour before the fire, and pouring milk and butter
: into it . beftdes which, they eat beef, partly roafted arid
partly raw. Their horned cattle are the largeft and fatteft;
in the world, and are exceedingly fine ; but the common
meat fold in the market is camels flefli. The liver o f the
aiiinaalj and the fpare rib, are always éaten raw through
the whole country. , I, never faw one inftance where it was
dreffed, with fire :. it is -not then itrme that eating raw flefli
is peculiar to Abyflinia ;. it is praftifed in this inftance o f camels
fleih in all the black countries to the weftward.
(Hoes ffeih is nôtilbid; in the market ; but a ll the people
o f Sennaàr eat it publicly: men in: office, who pretend to be
-Mahometans, eat theirs in fecret. Thé Mahometan religion
•„made a very remarkable progrefs among the Jews and
. Chriftians on the Arabian, or eaftern fide o f the Red Sea,
and foon after alfo in Egypt ; but it-was' either received
coolly ,.or not at all, by the Pagans on the weft fide|’ unlefs
. when, after a ii^nal victory, it was ftrongly enforced hy the
fword o f the conqueror.
T he