themselves brokers! It is true that three or four times a year
caravans arrive from the interior, but as a rule, with the exception
of a skin or two of honey, and a few bags of jowaree, nothing is
imported. What possible business can about 500 brokers have? How
ten dollars' worth of honey and fifty of grain can give a brokerage
sufficient to clothe and feed, not only themselves but also their
families, is a problem I have in vain endeavoured to solve!

In the East, children, instead of being a burden to poor people,
are often a source of wealth: at Massowah they certainly are. The
young girls of Moncullou, &c., bring in a pretty good income to
their parents. I know big, strong, but lazy fellows who would squat
down all day in the shade of their huts, living on the earnings of
two or three little girls, who daily went once or twice to Massowah
laden with a large skin full of water. The water-girls vary in age
from eight to sixteen. The younger ones are rather pretty, small,
but well made, the hair neatly braided and falling on the shoulders.
A small piece of cotton reaching from the waist to the knee is
generally the only garment of the poorest. Those better off wear
also a piece of plaid thrown gracefully across the shoulders. The
right nostril is ornamented with a small copper ring; as a substitute,
a shirt-button is much esteemed, and during our stay our buttons
were in constant demand.

If we take into consideration that Massowah is situated within the
tropics, possessing no running stream, that it is surrounded by
burning deserts, and that rain seldom falls, the conclusion we could
beforehand have arrived at is, that the climate is essentially hot
and dry.