time--for we must rise at cockcrow--in spreading our mats round the common
room. You would admire the Somali pillow [29], a dwarf pedestal of carved
wood, with a curve upon which the greasy poll and its elaborate _frisure_
repose. Like the Abyssinian article, it resembles the head-rest of ancient
Egypt in all points, except that it is not worked with Typhons and other
horrors to drive away dreadful dreams. Sometimes the sound of the
kettledrum, the song, and the clapping of hands, summon us at a later hour
than usual to a dance. The performance is complicated, and, as usual with
the trivialities easily learned in early youth, it is uncommonly difficult
to a stranger. Each dance has its own song and measure, and, contrary to
the custom of El Islam, the sexes perform together. They begin by clapping
the hands and stamping where they stand; to this succeed advancing,
retiring, wheeling about, jumping about, and the other peculiarities of
the Jim Crow school. The principal measures are those of Ugadayn and
Batar; these again are divided and subdivided;--I fancy that the
description of Dileho, Jibwhayn, and Hobala would be as entertaining and
instructive to you, dear L., as Polka, Gavotte, and Mazurka would be to a
Somali.

On Friday--our Sunday--a drunken crier goes about the town, threatening
the bastinado to all who neglect their five prayers. At half-past eleven a
kettledrum sounds a summons to the Jami or Cathedral. It is an old barn
rudely plastered with whitewash; posts or columns of artless masonry
support the low roof, and the smallness of the windows, or rather air-
holes, renders its dreary length unpleasantly hot. There is no pulpit; the
only ornament is a rude representation of the Meccan Mosque, nailed like a
pothouse print to the wall; and the sole articles of furniture are ragged
mats and old boxes, containing tattered chapters of the Koran in greasy
bindings. I enter with a servant carrying a prayer carpet, encounter the
stare of 300 pair of eyes, belonging to parallel rows of squatters, recite