A cursory inspection of Shaghab removed some of the difficulties
which had perplexed us at Shuwak and elsewhere. In the North
Country signs of metal-working, which was mostly confined to the
Wadys, have been generally obliterated; washed away or sanded
over. Here the industry revealed itself without mistake. The
furnaces were few, but around each one lay heaps of Negro and
copper-green quartz, freshly fractured; while broken handmills of
basalt and lava, differing from the rubstones and mortars of a
softer substance, told their own tale.

At Shaghab, then, the metalliferous "Maru" brought from the
adjacent granitic mountains was crushed, and then transported for
roasting and washing to Shuwak, where water, the prime necessary
in these lands, must have been more abundant. Possibly in early
days the two settlements formed one, the single of
Ptolemy; and the south end would have been the headquarters of
the wealthy. Hence the Bedawin always give it precedence--Shaghab
wa Shuwak; moreover, we remarked a better style of building in
the former; and we picked up glass as well as pottery.

As a turkey buzzard (vulture) is the fittest emblem for murderous
Dahome, so I should propose for Midian, now spoiled and wasted by
the Wild Man, a broken handmill of basalt upon a pile of spalled
Negro quartz.





Chapter XII.