CAIRO TO KISUMU title is to go with it. If the transfer is made elsewhere the terms of the bargain may be questioned, so the traders come to the square to do their buying and selling.

It is strange to have shops that sell money. I do not mean stock exchanges or banks, but real stores with money on the counters, stacked up in bundles, or laid away in piles on the shelves. That is what they have in Omdurman. There are caravans going out from here to all parts of north central Africa, and before one starts away it must have the right currency for the journey. I n financial matters these people are not far from the Dark Ages. Many of the tribes do not know what coinage means; they use neither copper, silver, nor gold, and one of our dollars would be worth nothing to them. Among many of the people brass wire and beads are the only currency. Strange to say, every locality has its own style of beads, and its favourite wire. If blue beads are popular you can buy nothing with red ones, while if the people want beads of metal it is useless to offer them glass.

In some sections cloth is used as money; in others salt is the medium of exchange. The salt is moulded or cut out of the rocks in sticks, and so many sticks will buy a cow or a camel. The owner of one of the largest money stores of the Sudan is a Syrian, whose shop is not far from the great market. He told me that he would be glad to outfit me if I went into the wilds. I priced some of his beads. Those made of amber were especially costly. He had one string of amber lumps, five in number. Each bead was the size of a black walnut, and he asked for the string the equivalent of about fifteen American dollars. The string will be worn around some woman's bare waist, and may form the whole wardrobe of the maiden who gets it.

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