and goats; a few
cat-fish from the river, plenty of a vegetable called meholakea; some
limes, a few melons, cucumbers, dried barmea, a vegetable common in
Egypt; beans, durra, duchan, tobacco of the country, plenty of gum
arable, with which, by the way, Sennaar abounds, (the natives use it
in their cookery;) drugs and spices brought from Gidda, among which
I observed ginger, pepper, and cloves; and great quantities of dried
odoriferous herbs found in Sennaar, with which the natives season their
dishes; to which must be added, aplenty of the long cotton cloths used
for dress in Sennaar. Such were the articles offered for sale by the
people of the country. In addition to which, the suttlers of our army
offered for sale, tobacco, coffee, rice, sugar, shirts, drawers, shoes,
gun flints, &c. &c. all at a price three or four times greater than
they could be bought for at Cairo. In some parts of the market-place
the Turks established coffee-houses, and the Greeks who accompanied
the army, cook-shops. These places became the resort of every body who
wanted to buy something to eat, or to hear the news of the day. There
might be seen soldiers in their shirts and drawers, hawking about their
breeches for sale in order to be able to buy a joint of meat to relish
their rations of durra withal, and cursing bitterly their luck in that
they had not received any pay for eight months; while the solemn Turk of
rank perambulated the area, involved, like pious Eneas at Carthage, in
a veil of clouds exhaling from a long amber headed pipe. All around you
you might hear much hard swearing in favor of the most palpable lies;
the seller in favor of his goods, and the buyer in favor of his Egyptian
piasters. In one place a crowd collects around somebody or other lying
on the ground without his head on, on account of some misdemeanor; a
little farther on, thirty or forty soldiers are engaged in driving, with
repeated strokes of heavy mallets, sharp pointed pieces of timber, six
or eight inches square, up the posteriors of some luckless insurgents
who had had the audacity to endeavor to defend their country and their
liberty; the women of the country meantime standing at a distance, and
exclaiming, "that it was scandalous to make men die in so indecent a
manner, and protesting that such a death was only fit for a Christian,"
(a character they hold in great abhorrence, probably from never having
seen one). Such was the singular scene presented to the