«0 MEMOIR OF BURCKHARDT. 



by the treading of their enormous feet as by theif 

 voracity. The most esteemed whips, called rorhadj^ 

 are made of their skin, which are in general use in 

 Egypt, the dread of every slave and peasant. 



Crocodiles are very numerous; and at Sennaar 

 their flesh is brought to the market and publicly 

 sold. " I once," says Burckhardt, " tasted some of 

 the meat at Esne ; it is of a dirty white colour, not 

 unlike young veal, A\'ith a slight fishy smell. It 

 had been taken alive by some fishermen in a strong 

 net, and was about twelve feet in length. The 

 governor ordered it to be brought into his court- 

 yard, where more than a hundred balls were fired 

 against it without effect, till it was thrown upon its 

 back and the contents of a small s^s-ivel discharged 

 at its belly, the skin of which is softer." The rhi- 

 noceros inhabits the neighbourhood of Seimaar, but 

 never visits the countries of the Nile to the north of 

 that place. The natives call it om kom^ or the 

 mother of one horn ; so that it is evidently from 

 this animal that the imaginary unicorn lias had its 

 origin. 



After remaining a month (April 17 — May 17) at 

 Shendey, where he disposed of his whole adventure 

 of small wares and purchased a slave, — a boy of 

 f'jui-teen, — he set out with one of the Souakin cara- 

 vans, in the direction of the Red Sea, passing the 

 river Atbora (Astaboras) and the country of Toka, 

 remarkable for its fertility ; the whole soil, like that 

 of Egypt, being periodically inundated by the tor- 

 rents rushing down from the Abyssinian mountains. 



