1 78 A SAIL UPON THE ALBERT LAKE. ' 



thorny shrubs, and between these were little clumps of an aloe, 

 with leaves striped with white. No labour can be performed 

 in the immediate vicinity of the springs, owing to the over- 

 heated soil and want of space. We turned our faces towards 

 the lake, and followed the curiously winding ravine to its 

 outlet. 



As we passed along we could easily imagine ourselves in the 

 shaft of a gold-mine ; and, in point of fact, the salt is gold to 

 all our tribes. The floor of the ravine had been levelled and 

 cleared of all stones. The hot water was conducted in all 

 directions in small troughs, set in and ingeniously supported on 

 stones. Lumps of riddled earth lay heaped up ready for being 

 operated upon. The several work-places were separated from 

 one another by rows of stones. Women and children were 

 busy everywhere, either scratching up the saline soil, or else 

 filling the sieve-like apparatus. The strangest thing about the 

 scene was, perhaps, the walls of saline earth, piled up to the 

 height of six or seven feet, and having rows of filtering ves- 

 sels at their base ; these walls, when seen from a distance, 

 look like the ruins of a village. 



The method of preparing the salt is quite simple. The 

 earth from which the salt is to be extracted is placed in the 

 evening under the end of a trough, whence a thin stream 

 of water trickles over it all night long. In the morning it is 

 put to dry for some hours ; after this, the women, with cres- 

 cent-shaped pieces of iron, scratch off its superficial layers, and 

 put them into other small troughs, out of which they riddle it 

 again into small heaps. The next day a certain quantity of 

 this earth is mixed with water, and then conveyed to the filter- 

 ing apparatus. This consists of simple clay vessels, having 

 holes in the bottom covered with a layer of fine hay ; the 

 vessels themselves stand upon three stones, and have beneath 

 them smaller clay vessels, into which the liquid drops. This 

 apparatus stands in rows, at the base of those mud walls 

 to which I have already referred. When the filtration is 

 finished, if the manufacturer is not pressed for time, he 

 allows the liquor to evaporate in the open air ; it then leaves 

 behind it a pure white salt. If, however, time cannot be given 

 for this process of evaporation, it is accomplished by means of 



