8 UGANDA AND THE EGYPTIAN SOUDAN.

by the Hindu women. A little beyond this the hum of many voices strikes the ear, and we pause opposite an Arab school ; here some thirty or forty youngsters are squatting on the ground, reciting passages from the Koran in a monotonous chant, swaying their bodies to and fro as they read ; while at one end a long-bearded, spectacled Mwalirnu, or dominie, presides. Presently an unlucky urchin makes a false quantity, and promptly receives a dig in the chest from the dominie's cane, and is sent sprawling on his back, but he quickly rights himself, and proceeds with his reading in the same dismal strain. Threading our way through the narrow winding streets, passing the shops of the ivory dealers, where piles of the huge tusks, which first saw the light in some far-off forest on the shores of the Nyanza or banks of the Lualaba, lie waiting for shipment to Europe, watched over by solemn-faced, placid Hindus or Banyans, we turn down into the soko, or market-place. Here an animated scene meets the eye : dealers in almost every imaginable thing that can be bought or sold are here to , be found with their wares. The whole of the large open space extending from the custom-house between the Fort and the Sultan's palace to the centre of the town is filled with a dense crowd, bargaining, chaffering, arguing, quarrelling, and minding every one's business except their own. Bound every group of sellers a throng of people is gathered, the greater number being merely on-