THE EGYPTIAN SUDAN selves in two rows, forming a kind of street, and before each of them was a series of small receptacles filled with the seeds and berries which are used as drugs and medicines and aphrodisiacs by the Sudani folk. Nearly every one had coarse native soap for sale, and some had little boxes containing three or six or a dozen small cakes of scented soap of Western manufacture. Cheap scents, small round mirrors made in Germany, boxes of pins and needles, and small articles for personal use, were in great demand. Most of the business was done by barter, especially in the case of small dealings, but a large number of Maria Theresa dollars changed hands. There was very little change available, for at that time hardly any small pieces of money were to be found in the Sudn ; so far as possible every transaction was settled in whole dollars. The want of pieces of money of the value of one, two, five, and ten piastres caused great inconvenience, especially when men's wages had to be paid, and articles of food, such as milk, eggs, vegetables, &c., bought daily. Many merchants possessed scales, but the weights were usually pebbles or pieces of stone, and it is certain that numbers of them cheated their customers. Water was hawked round by men who carried it in skins, and dispensed it to the thirsty in gourds. The busiest time in the market was between the hours of II a.m. and 2 p.m., when the noise and shouting were deafening, and the jostling and pushing, the heat and glare, and the dust and confusion rendered a visit to a Sudan market, held at a place like the plain of Tankasi, a thing never to be forgotten.

The market at Barkal was quite as interesting as that of Tankasi, and not so fatiguing to visit, for it was held in the afternoon and only lasted two hours or so ; it began about 2 p.m., and so soon as the shadows of the hills began to touch the plain the temporary booths were pulled down, and the villagers returned to their homes. Trade was brisk while it lasted, and more money changed hands for clothes than for food. One afternoon a man appeared there who called himself a "merchant" {tuggnr), and he dealt in beads, metal ornaments, and scents ; he spoke French and Arabic, and was, apparently, a Syrian, and said he had been to school in Beyrftt. After a little talk he said that he had come to the villages on that side of the river to see if he could buy up 218 I