HOW TO MAKE A KOORBATCH. 211 



into a brush. If Essafi passes such a tree in the day's 

 hunt, he always cuts two tooth-brushes, one for me ; 

 and the rest of the time he seems never to tire of the 

 cleaning process. It has a pleasant taste, but from 

 want of faith in the result I soon give up the per- 

 formance. 



What a valuable tree this would be to cultivate in 

 England, if the native toothbrush were only required to 

 give us the native teeth ! Mohamed occupies his time 

 more with the useful than the ornamental, and starts off 

 in the morning with a strip of hippo-hide for conversion 

 into a small koorbatch. This, though white and stiff at 

 first, becomes after the labour of hours, or rather days, 

 extremely flexible and quite black, by the simple process 

 of being pulled through the closed hand ; and whether he 

 is riding, or walking, or sitting over the fire at night, like 

 an old knitting woman he has always his work in hand. 



March 7. Our mosquito-curtains have answered so 

 well that we are now perfectly content with our encamp- 

 ment on the green sward ; but our people have raised 

 such an objection to it, on the plea of the absence of 

 shade from the great midday heat, that we have yielded 

 the point, and have agreed to move a few hundred yards, 

 to encamp on the island called Eddebabeha. If the 

 truth were known, it is probable that they object far 

 more to the proximity of the nightly roar of the lion 

 than to the absence of shade. The island is a very 



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