146 DAR-HAMMER.

collects in the small ponds, called by the Dar-Hammer Fula, has evaporated, not a drop of drinkable water is, commonly speaking, to be found in the various districts they inhabit during three months of the year ; and there are no wells or cisterns in the country, with the exception of the Nedjer wells.

The villages, therefore, situated at a distance from these springs, are obliged to send their women, children, old and infirm men, their goats, sheep, and part of their camels, to the above-mentioned wells, and to Ketshmar, during three months of the year.

Only the men, and a few camels, remain behind. To furnish a substitute for water they resort to the following plan : they cultivate large fields of watermelons, which ripen about the time at which the scarcity of water begins to be felt. The ripe fruit is daily gathered, and the juice expressed is not drunk, but used for merissa, or boiling the assida and woika : they escape one inconvenience which would result from a lack of water elsewhere, for they have no linen to wash, and those who wear so luxurious an article of dress as a shirt never wash it, even when there is abundance of water. The camels remaining with them receive two fresh melon husks daily. This allowance supplies them M'ith the quantity of fluid necessary for them, and they do not suffet in the slightest degree from thirst ; for, as a rule, camels are only watered every two or three days