THE SOURCE OF THE NILE. 477 



them from cutaneous eruptions, of which they are fo fear- 

 ful, that the fmalleft pimple in any vifible part of their bo^ 

 dy keeps them in the houfe till it difappears : For the 

 fame reafon, though they have a clean fliirt every day, they 

 life one dipt in greafe to lie in all night, as they have no 

 covering but this, and lie upon a bull's hide, tanned, and 

 very much foftened by this conftant greafnig, and at the 

 fame time very cool, though it occafions a fmell that na 

 wafliing can free them from. 



The principal diet of the poorer fort is millet, made in-- 

 to bread or flour. The rich make a pudding of this, toaft- 

 ing the flour before the fire, and pouring milk and butter 

 into it ; befides which, they eat beef, partly roafled and 

 partly raw. Their horned cattle are the largefl and fatted 

 in the world, and are exceedingly fine ; but the common 

 meat fold in the market is camels flefli. The liver of the 

 animal, and the fpare rib, are always eaten raw through 

 the whole country. I never faw one inftance where it was 

 drelTed with fire : it is not then true that eating raw flelh 

 is peculiar to Abyllinia ; it is pradifed in this inftance of ca- 

 mels fleili in all the black countries to the weftward. 



Hogs flefli is not fold in the market ; but all the people 

 of Sennaar eat it publicly : men in ofTice, who pretend to be 

 Mahometans, eat theirs in fecret. Tlie Mahometan religion 

 made a very remarkable progrefs among the Jews and 

 Chriftians on the Arabian, or eaftern fule of the Red Sea, 

 and foon after alfo in Egypt ; but it was cither received 

 coolly, or not at all, by the Pagans on the wefl fide, unlefs 

 when, after a fignal victory, it was flrongly enforced by the 



fvvord of tjie conqueror^ 



The 



