54 HABITS AND CUSTOMS.

to learn something more of the habits of these animals, to find out where they live and in what numbers they congregate. I have often dug to a depth of one foot or two feet in the sand without meeting with one single ant ; and yet, if I placed a wooden chest on the ground, where I had just been digging, I found in a short time the spot covered with hundreds of these insects.

The interior of some of the tukkoli is decorated with beautiful coloured straw mats ; the angareb is also covered with variegated matting, and serves, at the same time, as a couch. Two or three ropes are drawn across the middle of the hut, to which ribbons, two fingers in breadth, plaited of rushes, and spreading out inferiorly, are attached; by these ligatures blue porcelain plates, of English manufacture, are suspended, to contain food and preserve it from the insects. A second cord is passed round the hut, to which black glass bottles are hung, ornamented with gold paper ; part of these are empty, others again are filled with perfumery and cosmetics belonging to the women, as grease, palm-oil, oil of cloves, shebe,* telka,f etc. The walls are decorated with a shield, a two-edged sword, and a few spears. Before the tukkoli, a hollow cylinder made of cow-dung is frequently met with, it is placed on stones, and is hermetically closed with a lid. In this vessel the inhabitants keep their corn, but a majority of them bury their stores under-ground. For this purpose * Shebe or Sheb, native alum. Tb.

t Telka or Telg, a species of pomatum. Tr.