404 JOURNEY TO CENTRAL AFRICA.

There is no bazaar, but an open market-place, where the people sit on the ground and sell their produce, consisting of dourra, butter dates, onions, tobacco and a few grass mats.

There may be a mosque in the place, but in the course of my ramble through the streets, I saw nothing that looked like one. Half the houses appeared to be uninhabited, and the natives were a hideous mixture of the red tribes of Mahass and Shygheea and the negro races of Soudan. A few people were moving lazily through the dusty and filthy lanes, but the greater portion were sitting in the earth, on the shady side of the houses. In one of the streets I was taken for the Medical Inspector of the town, a part of whose business it is to see that it is kept free from filth. Two women came hastily out of the houses and began sweeping vigorously, saying to me as I came up : " You see, we are sweeping very clean." It would have been much more agreeable to me, had the true Inspector gone his rounds the day before. El Metemma and Shendy are probably the most immoral towns in all Central Africa. The people informed me that it was a regular business for persons to buy female slaves, and hire them for the purpose of prostitution, all the money received in this vile way going into the owner's pocket.

I was occupied the rest of the day and the next morning in procuring and filling additional water-skins, and preparing to cross the Beyooda. Achmet had a quantity of bread baked, for the journey would occupy seven or eight days, and there was no possibility of procuring provisions on the road. Mohammed did not make his appearance at the appointed time, and I determined to start without him, my caravan being increased by a Dongolese merchant, and a poor Shygheean,