; but the most numerous stalls
are those devoted to red pepper, beads, and perfumery."
Beyond the main street of straw booths are vendors of
miscellaneous goods, squatting under temporary fan-shaped straw
screens, which are rented at the rate of five paras per day
(about a farthing); beneath these may be seen vendors of butter
and other grease, contained in a large jar by their side, while
upon a stone before them are arranged balls of fat which are sold
at five paras a lump. Each morsel is about the size of a
cricket-ball: this is supposed to be the smallest quantity
required for one dressing of the hair. Other screens are occupied
by dealers in ropes, mats, leathern bags, girbas or water-skins,
gum sacks, beans, waker, salt, sugar, coffee, &c. &c. Itinerant
snmiths are at work, making knife-blades, repairing spears, &c.
with small boys working the bellows, formed of simple leathern
bags that open and close by the pressure of two sticks. The
object that draws a crowd around him is a professional
story-teller, wonderfully witty, no doubt, as, being mounted upon
a camel from which he addresses his audience, he provokes roars
of merriment; his small eyes, overhanging brow, large mouth, with
thin and tightly compressed lips and deeply dimpled cheeks,
combined with an unlimited amount of brass, completed a picture
of professional shrewdness.
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