Page:Travels to Discover the Source of the Nile - In the Years 1768, 1769, 1770, 1771, 1772, and 1773 volume 4.djvu/504

 vermin, all this beauty suddenly disappears; bare, scorched Nubia returns, and all its terrors of poisonous winds and moving sands, glowing and ventilated with sultry blasts, which are followed by a troop of terrible attendants, epilepsies, apoplexies, violent fevers, obstinate agues, and lingering, painful dysenteries, still more obstinate and mortal.

War and treason seem to be the only employment of this horrid people, whom Heaven has separated, by almost impassable deserts, from the rest of mankind, confining them to an accursed spot, seemingly to give hem earnest in time of the only other work which he has reserved to them, for an eternal hereafter.

The dress of Sennaar is very simple. It consists of a long shirt of blue Surat cloth called Marowty, which covers, them from the lower part of the neck down to their feet, but does not conceal the neck itself; and this is the only difference between the men's and the women's dress; that of the women covers their neck altogether, being buttoned like ours. The men have sometimes a sash tied about their middles; and both men and women go barefooted in the house, even those of the better fort of people. Their floors are covered with Persian carpets, especially the women's apartments. In fair weather, they wear sandals; and without doors they use a kind of wooden patten, very neatly ornamented with shells. In the greatest heat at noon, they order buckets of water to be thrown upon there instead of bathing. Both men and women anoint themselves, at lead once a-day, with camels grease mixed with civet, which they imagine softens their skin, and preserves-