HABITS AND CUSTOMS. 53 ing, and a third for " merissa " (a species of beer) ; further a flat earthern dish " doka " for baking bread ; some few gourds for drinking ; a wooden platter named "gedda" for the boiled food; and a dish of straw plaited from the leaves of the Doum palm, called "tabake." Milk is kept in a basket formed of rushes so densely interlaced that no fluid can percolate : to render them thus impermeable they are steeped in boiling water immediately after they are plaited. Provisions and other articles of domestic economy are hung against the walls, to keep them from the mice and white ants ; these insects are a thorough plague in the country, and nothing is safe from them ; they will even gnaw and undermine the wood-work of a house, and cause the whole fabric to fall to pieces. Their habitation is the sand, especially where it is rather damp ; everything in fact that is placed on the ground is in danger of being eaten up by them ; chests and trunks should, therefore, be placed upon stones, for they do not creep up these : the open air is also fatal to the white ant. When they have gnawed anything to pieces they leave a moisture mixed with sand, which becoming hard forms an incrustation ; and beneath this they carry on their work of destruction. This covering is not intended to defend them from other insects inimical to them, and likely to disturb them in their work, but to guard themselves against the access of the air, which, as I before mentioned, they cannot bear. I took all possible pains