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 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, 7l. 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.
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