56 MAS SOW AH. 
stance, and a proof of the increasing civilization of that country. 
The Suakin trade in slaves is, they say, proportionably augmenting. 
In return, they send up British broad-cloth, arms, ammunition, 
and the different manufactures of India : a little grain is also 
brought down from Abyssinia. They have, in their own country, 
plenty of goats and oxen ; the sea supplies them with an inex- 
4iaustible variety of fish of the finest kinds ; so that their living is 
by no means bad : game also seems in the greatest plenty. Water 
at Arkeko is not very good, but abundant. On the island of Mas- 
sowah are about thirty tanks, which are filled in the rainy season : 
\ these are kept closed, and are, I believe, private property. They are 
not sufficient for the supply of the place, and much water is 
brought every morning by the boats from Arkeko. 
The houses are, each, surroundedby a fence of reeds : the rooms 
are detached, and built of the same: within, they are lined with 
mats. The common people are extremely civil, and no one carries 
any arms, except the immediate family of the Nayib. My Ascar 
had no weapon except a stick. The natives did not seem jealous of 
their women, who came down to bathe, and performed their ablu- 
tions close to the place where I sat, without any appearance of 
shame. The slaves of the neighbours had, I believe, been found not 
over coy by the Europeans on shore. My next door neighbour 
was the Sirdar of the Ascarri, and I suspected, the intercourse was 
permitted by him, and that he shared in the profit. I saw only one 
deformed person, a female dwarf with bandy legs, who bathed 
before us regularly every day. The men and women are naturally 
well made, but childbirth destroys the figures of the latter. 
The Ascarri are completely under the influence of the Nayib, 
