Page:Travels to Discover the Source of the Nile - In the Years 1768, 1769, 1770, 1771, 1772, and 1773 volume 4.djvu/513

 buying of the small pox. The women are the conductors of this operation in the fairest and dried season of the year, but never at other times. Upon the first hearing of the small pox any where, these people go to the infected place, and, wrapping a fillet of cotton cloth about the arm of the person infected, they let it remain there till they bargain with the mother how many she is to sell them. It is necessary that the terms be discussed judaically, and that the bargain be not made collusively or gratuitously, but that one piece of silver, or more, be paid for the number. This being concluded, they go home, and tie the fillet about their own child's arm; certain, as they say, from long experience, that the child infected is to do well, and not to have one more than the number of pustules that were agreed and paid for. There is no example, as far as I could learn, either here or in Abyssinia, of this disease returning, that is, attacking any one person more than once.

The trade of Sennaar is not great; they have no manufactures, but the principal article of consumption is blue cotton cloth from Surat. Formerly, when the ways were open, and merchants went in caravans with safety, Indian goods were brought in quantities to Sennaar from Jidda, and then dispersed over the black country. The return was made in gold, in powder called Tibbar, civet, rhinoceros's horns, ivory, ostrich feathers, and, above all, in slaves or glass, more of which was exported from Sennaar than all the east of Africa together. But this trade is almost destroyed, so is that of the gold and ivory. However, the gold still keeps up its reputation of being the purest and best in Africa, and therefore bought at Mocha to be carried to