Cairo to Kisumu

by Frank G. Carpenter

In the Manchester bazaar I found them selling cottons of many kinds and calicoes of gay patterns. There were but few American goods among them, the chief importations being from England and Germany. I saw some American sewing machines in the bazaar of the tailors, and I understand that they are generally used throughout the Nile valley.

A good deal of cotton is being grown throughout the Sudan nowadays and there is a whole street in Omdurman devoted to the manufacture and sale of the native product. This market at Omdurman serves a large district beyond the city, and consists of many little sheds covered with mats facing a dirt road. It is situated not far from the centre of the city, and there are several thousand acres of mud huts reaching out on all sides of it. Both the sheds and the streets are filled with cotton. It is brought in in bags of matting, and sold just as it is when picked from the plants. The samples are displayed in flat, round baskets, each of which holds perhaps a bushel; and when carried away it is put up in bags and not in bales. A great part of it goes to the native weavers, who turn it into cloth, using the smallest factories one can imagine.

Not far from the street where the cotton is sold I found one of these tiny factories. The establishment consisted of a half-dozen mud huts, shut off from the street by a mud wall, which, with the huts, formed a court. In the court a dozen black-skinned women were sitting on mats on the ground, ginning and spinning, while the weaving went on in the huts at the back. The gin was somewhat like a clothes wringer save that the rolls were about as big around as the ordinary candle, and the whole machine was so small that it could have fitted into a peck measure. One woman turned the machine while another put in the cotton and picked out the seeds as they failed to go through. Near the gin sat two women who were snapping the lint with bowstrings to separate the fibres, and farther over there were a half-dozen others, sitting cross-legged, and spinning the lint into yarn by hand.

I went to the mud huts at the back to look in at the weavers. They were black boys and men, who sat before rude looms on the edge of holes in the ground. The looms were so made that they could be worked with the feet, the shuttles being thrown back and forth by hand. The latter moved through the cloth with a whistling noise, which was about the only sound to be heard. The cloth turned out is very good. It is well woven and soft, and brings good prices. Its wearing qualities are better than those of the Manchester and American cottons. I asked what wages the boy weavers received, and was told ten cents a day.

A large part of the grain of the Upper Sudan comes down the Blue and White Niles to Omdurman. The grain markets are close to the river and since there is no rain here at this time of the year, there is no need for warehouses or sheds. The grain is poured out on the hard ground in great piles and left there until sold. If you will imagine several hundred little mountains of white or red sand with wooden measures of various sizes lying at their feet or stuck into their sloping sides, you may have some idea of this Central African grain market. You must add the tents of canvas or the mat shelters in which the native merchants stay while waiting for their customers, as well as a crowd of black-skinned, white-gowned men and women moving about sampling the wares and buying or selling.

The merchants watch the grain all day, and if they are forced to go away at nightfall they smooth the hills out and make cabalistic marks upon them so that they can easily tell if their property has been disturbed during their absence. The most common grains sold here are wheat, barley, and dura. The last named is ground to a flour either in hand mills or between stones moved about by bullocks or camels, and is eaten in the shape of round loaves of about the circumference of a tea plate and perhaps two inches thick. The wheat is of the macaroni variety, which grows well in these dry regions wherever irrigation is possible.

Speaking of the flour of the Sudan, I visited one of the largest milling establishments of the country during my stay in Omdurman. The owner is among the richest and most influential of the Sudanese. He is an emir, and as such is a leading citizen of the town. His mills were in a great mud-walled compound, which contained also his garden and home. The garden was irrigated by a well, and upon entering it I saw two black slave girls turning the wheels which furnished the water supply.

The mills were three in number. Each was in a mud stable-like one-story building just large enough to hold the millstones and the track for the animals which turned them. The stones were similar to the old-fashioned grinding machines of our own country. They rested one upon the other and were so made that the grain flowed from a hopper on to the top stone. The motive power for each mill was a blindfolded camel, who moved around in a circle, turning the top stone. The camels were driven by black boys, who sat on the bars of the mills and rode there as they whipped them along. The flour so ground was fine. Picking up a handful, I tasted it and found it quite good.

The Shilouks are among the most powerful Sudanese tribes. The men are usually over six feet tall and well formed. They stiffen their hair with grease and clay and then cut it into fantastic shapes much as a privet hedge is trimmed.