owing to their being obliged to do all sorts of drudgery.

The children of these people, and indeed of all the tribes on the Upper
Nile, go quite naked till near the age of puberty. A girl unmarried
is distinguished by a sort of short leather apron, composed of a great
number of leather thongs hanging like tassels from a leather belt
fastened round the waist: and this is all her clothing, being no longer
than that of our mother Eve after her fall. The married women, however,
are generally habited in long coarse cotton clothes, which they wrap
round them so as to cover their whole person, except when they are at
work, when they wrap the whole round the waist.

As to the manufactures of the people of the Upper Nile, they are
limited, I believe, to the following articles, Earthenware for domestic
uses and bowls for pipes; cotton cloths for clothing; knives, mattocks,
hoes and ploughs, for agriculture, water-wheels for the same; horse
furniture, such as the best formed saddles I ever rode on, very neatly
fabricated; stirrups in the European form, made of silver for the
chiefs, and not like those of the Turks; large iron spurs, bits with
small chains for reins, to prevent them from being severed by the stroke
of an enemy's broadsword; long and double edged broadswords, with the
guard frequently made of silver; iron heads for lances, and shields
made of the hide of the elephant; to which may be added, that the women
fabricate very beautiful straw mats.

There is a general resemblance, in domestic customs, among all the
peoples who inhabit the borders of the Nile from Assuan to Sennaar. They
differ, however, somewhat in complexion and character. The people of
the province of Succoot are generally not so black as the Nubian or the
Dongolese. They are also frank and prepossessing in their deportment.