48 PURCHASING CAMELS.

they met again, and pitched their tent near a village called Naouri, on the edge of a cliff overlooking the River Atbara, truly a magnificent stream, and the most important tributary of the Nile.

Naouri, belonging to the Shukereeyeh tribe, is forty-five miles from Cassala. It was a very large village, containing some thousands of Arabs. The houses consisted of mat huts.

These huts, the natives take about with them ; and during the rains there would be no trace of Naouri, as the inhabitants move farther north, with all their goods and chattels, to return to the same spot the following year, when Naouri would again be called into existence. This place is only a few miles norlh of a large permanent village, called Kourashi, chiefly inhabited by fakirs, a kind of dervishes, who have schools there. The following day, about noon, camels and their owners began arriving from all quarters. A trade anything but brisk followed. The Arab, like all Orientals, delights in long bargainings, time being of no object to him. We had . already lost a great deal of time, and were impatient to get on : so, Colvin and my brother having given a good price for the two first camels offered for sale, it quickly opened the market ; and acting on the system of buying at once, or sending the animal away, by evening they found themselves the possessors of about five-and-twenty camels. Although they selected the best they could find, most had the hideous wounds on the back and hip-bones, that the majority of baggage-camels have, which they at once doctored with carbolic acid. At length they came to a very fine animal, without mark or blemish, which they had purchased at an apparently reasonable price, and which they were consequently rather proud of. However, they noticed a derisive grin on the faces of the natives standing by; and, on seeking an explanation for their mirth.