SKETCHES IN THE SOUDAN 49 



about seven years ago, called Senheit. When the Habesh 

 reigned only that part on our right, Keren proper, existed; 

 since then an Egyptian colony has been added surrounding 

 the hill fort, and divided from the other by a tobacco field, 

 which colony is called Tantarua, while the whole is " Senheit." 

 One is a garrison town Egyptian, therefore Mohammedan ; 

 the other still a purely Abyssinian Christian village, consisting 

 entirely of beehive-like reed huts surrounded by high stake 

 fences and a few castor-oil plants, and watched over, like a 

 shepherd watches his flock, by the stone-built French Catholic 

 mission-house ; while the Egyptian town nestles under the pro- 

 tecting guns of the fort, which encloses in its walls the residence 

 of the governor, the public offices, and some very large wattle 

 huts for soldiers, strengthened with clay and neatly arranged 

 in rows on each side of the path leading from the gate to the 

 "palace." Enterprising Greeks have built a row of stone 

 houses on one side of the market-place, which are used as 

 shops and stores, and, as in our case, by any chance traveller 

 in search of lodging. 



The governor also holds the important post of commander-in- 

 chief on the Abyssinian frontier, a post which must entail a 

 great deal of anxiety, judging from the frequently current 

 rumours of an immediate outbreak of hostilities between the 

 two countries. The garrison was said to consist of three thou- 

 sand men, nearly all black troops ; the few lower Egyptians 

 among them serve here as a punishment for crimes committed 

 elsewhere. Those soldiers now loafing about in the market- 

 place seem on the best of terms with the well-shaped, pretty 

 Abyssinian girls who sit about here and there selling bread and 

 firewood. This bread, of which we had already laid in a store, 

 as a pleasant change from the everlasting, hard, almost stone- 

 like biscuit, on which, to the great danger of our teeth, we had 

 lately subsisted, is made of the coarse flour of wheat, dhurra, or 

 doochen (millet), in large flat circular, but very thin cakes. 



All our house contained in the way of furniture were two 

 native bedsteads. These we removed for entomological reasons, 

 furnishing our apartment instead with our own camp bedsteads, 

 table, chairs, &c. After dinner we soon turned in, but not to 

 sleep, for apparently all the curs in the town had collected near 

 our door, and the howls they set up were far too piercingly loud 



5 



