TRAVELS IN CENTRAL AFRICA. 
1 G2 
five or more^ all well built. There were about seventy men here in 
the traders^ employ, and as many more were in the interior, 
colleeting tusks. There was also a second enclosure for the cattle ; 
here our animals were placed. We were soon on shore, and revelled 
in a walk about the settlement. I expressed surprise that the men, 
who must have had plenty of leisure, did not attempt to cultivate 
even a few vegetables; but they receive stores of onions from 
Khartoum, and were satisfied. Many of the Kytch tribe came 
down to beg for grain, and, indeed, they appeared to need it, so 
lean and hungry did they look. It was a sorrow to turn a deaf ear 
to their piteous appeal ; but we have many mouths to feed, and our 
stores are reduced considerably, and so we could only give to the 
children. The women came with heavy loads of wood to barter for 
grain ; but the storekeeper was inexorable, and the women returned 
disconsolate to their village, whilst some of our men went with axes 
to a neighbouring wood to cut down a supply. These women wore 
a straw rachat round the loins, and a few strings of beads about 
the neck ; whilst the men were nude. This tribe also pull out the 
four front teeth in the lower jaw. Our mountaineers keep their 
teeth intact and beautifully white ; but they cut little star-like 
marks in the flesh in rows over the stomach and on the back, and 
many on the forehead, forming a band. 
' June ISth . — Went for a stroll with Petherick, and visited, a short 
distance from the river, a small settlement of the natives. The 
tookuls were badly built. I was invited by a negress to enter one 
of them, which I did by creeping through the low and narrow 
entrance, and found it very dark and smelling abominably. We 
stopped some time to watch a blacksmith at his work in the open 
air, with bellows of a primitive kind. Each was composed of a single 
