49 
amongst the Arabs of the Great African Desert. 
abounded in the water, and were caught with great ease hy nets 
let down from fishing- vessels, or hauled on the beach. He saw 
some like mackrel, others shaped like eels, but thicker and much 
larger. Some had no scales ; but he did not see any with long 
feelers at their mouths. 
There were many fishing- vessels on the Bahar, but no Ix^ats 
larger than that which conveyed them across the lake, which 
was capable of carrying about 200 people. Its ends were both 
alike, rising up like those of a canoe, very sharp, decked for 
about three yards at each end, with several thzmrts or seats for 
the rowers across it, on each of which two men sat when they 
rowed, each with a separate oar. The boat was very flat-bot- 
tomed, was ceiled in the bottom and up the sides, had no mast, 
but there was a step for one in the keel, and a hole in the seat 
over it. The cable Was formed of a rushy grass, which he was 
told is taken when green, is flattened by beating it when wet, 
and then twisted into ropes, which become afterwards yellow. 
The boat in the language of the Arabs is called zonrgos, but 
by the natives of El Sharrag and El Hezsh fooJc. 
With the master of the vessel, Scott had no opportunity of 
speaking. This man wore a white cotton shirt, with a red girdle, 
and was armed with a musket and cutlass. The dress of the 
boatmen had some resemblance to an English carter’s frock, but 
was made of woollen They all wore yellow slippers, lined 
with red, and of the same width from the toe to the heel f. 
These people spoke the Arab language, and also another called 
Sclilech. In the former Scott conversed with them, and found 
that they were apprehensive of being attacked while on the wa- 
ter, by people who come from the upper or northern part of the 
Bahar in boats, and who inhabit the eastern side of that part ; 
are small in size, and are a diflerent race from the Arabs. Scott 
thinks they told him, that this race (whom they named Zachah) 
do not believe in Mahommed. 
The boatmen also told him, pointing to the southward, that 
in that direction lay a great salt-water sea ; that the one they 
* This is a pretty accurate description of the dress of the poorer class of 
Moors on the northern coast of Barbary. 
•f* This is the exact counterpart of the Barbary Slipper. 
VOL. IV. -NO. 7. JANUARY 1821. 
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