428 



JOURNAL RELATING TO NUBIA. 



I found one at Elephantine, which might have been supposed to be 

 the pattern of the mode adopted by them. The little children are 

 naked ; girls wear round the body an apron of strings of raw hides, 

 and boys a girdle of linen. 



Their arms are knives or daggers, fastened to the back of the 

 elbows, or in the waist « javelins, tomahawks, swords of Roman 

 shape, but longer, and slung behind them. Some have round shields 

 of buffalo hide; and a few pistols and muskets are seen. 



Their dealings with one another or strangers are carried on more 

 by way of barter than by money, which I was informed had lately 

 come into general use among them. The para, which they called 

 feddah, of forty to the piastre, (to which the Nubians as well as the 

 Egyptians give the name goorsh,) the macboob of three piastres, 

 and Spanish dollar called real, or fransowy, worth seven piastres and 

 a half, were current among them. In the price of cattle, a cow sold 

 for twenty macboobs, and from that to forty ; a calf from three to 

 seven, a sheep from two to three. Dates and senna are their chief 

 articles of trade ; and no present can be more acceptable to their 

 chiefs than gunpowder of European manufacture. Corn is much 

 prized by them ; the bread which they eat is commonly made of 

 durra*; and is in form similar to the oatmeal cakes of Scotland, 

 but thicker. Since the time of Norden, who visited the country in 

 1737, 1738, great changes have happened. Some places mentioned 

 by him are no longer spoken of, and perhaps lie overwhelmed with 

 sand. I met with less difficulties in my voyage than he seems to 

 have encountered, yet I could not extend my researches much farther 

 on account of the excessive heat. There was nothing in the state of 

 the country to deter me from proceeding, if I had been inclined to 



* The Holcus Durra has been introduced into Egypt only in modern times ; the same 

 observation may be applied to the Arum Colocassia. On the other hand, there are trees 

 and plants of which the ancient writers speak, entirely unknown to the present inhabitants 

 of the country. The Nymphaea Nelumbo (faba Egyptia of the Greek botanists) is one; 

 the Persea is probably another; and a species of Amyris may be added. — See Sil. de Sacy. 

 Abdallatif. 47- 



