44 SPORT AND TRAVEL PAPERS 



ing and palatable when eaten with milk or honey, formed the 

 chief constituent of our breakfast. It is the women's task to 

 grind the dhurra, not by any means an easy one, for the grains 

 are very hard, and the only mills at their disposal consist of two 

 stones, of which one is worked by hand over the other. The 

 flour is then made into a paste with water, and afterwards divided 

 into masses of sufficient size either to make small but thick 

 loaves, or large circular very thin pancake-like bread, greatly 

 resembling the Indian " chupattie." The latter are baked on a 

 heated iron plate, the former in the interior of a large earthen- 

 ware pot, which, similar to an oven, has previously been heated 

 by means of coals inside. 



Bread is also made of the powdered resinous envelope of the 

 nut of the dome-palm, a tree which supplies as many wants of 

 the natives as does the bamboo in India. Mats are made of the 

 leaves; the Y-shaped division of the stem forms the main 

 support of the mat hut, for which the leaf-stems furnish the 

 framework ; the top interior of the young shoots is eaten boiled 

 as a vegetable ; the fruit is eagerly sought after, and its eatable 

 portion devoured by young and old ; lastly, threads are obtained 

 from the fibrous interior of the leaf-stem, and these threads 

 twisted together form excellent ropes. 



The youthful members of the sheikh's family, of course, do 

 nothing, but the sons of those who are not born in the purple 

 are soon sent out to tend the flocks, their first duties being 

 generally with the lambs and kids. The girls, also, are not long 

 left in idleness, but commence their life of drudgery early by 

 collecting firewood and fetching water from the wells, under the 

 weight of which, carried in ghirbas on their back, they stagger 

 along morning and evening. Schools in these pastoral villages 

 are naturally unknown, but when encamped some time before 

 near a stationary settlement, GK and I visited the village school, 

 which apparently was well attended. The scholars were taught, 

 besides a little reading and writing, to recite verses from the 

 Goran. These verses were written in ink prepared with gum 

 and the black from the outside of a cooking-pot, upon flat oblong 

 tablets of wood, about 12 in. by 4 in., whitened over with 

 chalk, and made of the trunk of the eucalyptus. Mohammed is 

 supposed to have said that anything written upon the wood of 

 that tree settles more easily in the human brain. 



