DEALING WITH WOMEN OUR SERVANTS. 265 
I was astonished to see them such barbarians as to 
daub their faces with yellow ochre. I did not expect 
this in the Mahommedan country of Aheer. They 
had a little ghaseb, a few onions, and other little 
things to barter. It is the most difficult thing in 
the world to deal with them ; and it requires as 
long to exchange things of the value of a penny, as 
for two London merchants to agree about merchan- 
dise of the value of a hundred thousand pounds ! 
When I had paid the En-Noor escort, I made a 
present to Yusuf and Sai'd. To the former I gave 
a fine burnouse (value thirty-four mahboubs), and 
told him I did so as a compensation for the extra- 
ordinary difficulties vvdiich v\'e had encountered on 
the road from Ghat to Aheer, bat that I could not 
write to Government for a present for him unless 
we could make some treaties with the inhabitants 
and princes of Central Africa. To Said I gave a 
veneese and a lecture. Our servants have not behaved 
so well as they ought to have done, considering that 
they are treated so much better than the servants of 
Muslims. 
Anecdotes of our late adventures are still in cir- 
culation amongst us, and I have learned some new 
ones to-day. The naivete of one of them is extreme ; 
but I can do more than allude to it. One of our 
party transgressed a custom which the Mahorame- 
dans have absurdly made obligatory. Great indig- 
nation was excited, even amongst the escort sent for 
our protection by En-Noor ; and one of them ex- 
