88 MEMOIR OF BURCKIIARDT. 



by the treading of their enormous feet as by their 

 voracity. The most esteemed whips, called rorbadj, 

 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, with 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 swivel discharged 

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

 noceros inhabits the neighbourhood of Sennaar, 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 has 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 

 fourteen, 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. 



