OMDURMAN, STRONGHOLD OF THE MAHD1 Not far from this bead money establishment the mamour and I entered the street of the silversmiths. This contains many shops in which black men and boys are busy making the barbaric ornaments of the Sudan. Jewellery is the savings bank of this region, and many of the articles are of pure silver and pure gold. Some are very heavy.

1 priced rings of silver worth five dollars apiece and handled a pair of gold earrings which the jeweller said were worth sixty dollars. The earrings were each as big around as a coffee cup, and about as thick as a lead pencil at the place where they are fastened into the ear. The man who had them for sale was barefooted, and wore a long white gown and a cap of white cotton. His whole dress could not have cost more than ten dollars. He was a black, and he had half-a-dozen black boys and men working away in his shop.

Each smith sat on the ground before a little anvil about eight inches high and six inches wide, and pounded at the silver or gold object he was making.

In another shop I saw them making silver anklets as thick as my thumb, while in another they were turning out silver filigree work as fine as any from Genoa or Bangkok. The mamour asked two of the jewellers to bring their anvils out in the sun in order that I might photograph them and they kindly complied.

A little farther on we entered the shoe bazaar, where scores of merchants were selling red leather slippers turned up at the toes, and in a court not far away we found mer¬ chants selling hides and leather fresh from the tanneries. They were salting the hides in the square, and laying them out in the sun to dry.

During my stay in this section I bought some ostrich feathers of a merchant who sold nothing else. He had a 195