Mahomet Gibberti married at Arkeeko. For fifteen days afterward, the husband there is invisible to everybody but the female friends of his wife, who in that sultry country do every thing they can, by hot and spiced drinks, to throw the man, stewed in a close room, into a fever. I do believe that Mahomet Gibberti, in the course of these fifteen days, was at least two stone lighter. It puts me much in mind of some of our countrymen sweating themselves for a horse-race with a load of flannel on. I conceive that Mahomet Gibberti, had it not been for the spice, would have made a bad figure in the match he was engaged in. One of these nights of his being sequestered, when, had I not providentially engaged Achmet, his uncle the Naybe would have cut our throats. I heard two girls, professors hired for such occasions, sing alternately verse for verse in reply to each other, in the most agreeable and melodious manner I ever heard in my life. This gave me great hopes that, in Abyssinia, I should find music in a state of perfection little expected in Europe. Upon inquiry into particulars I was miserably disappointed, by being told these musicians were all strangers from Azab, the myrrh country, where all the people were natural musicians, and sung in a better stile than that I had heard; but that nothing of this kind was known in Abyssinia, a mountainous, barbarous country, without instrument, and without song; and that it was the same here in Atbara; a miserable truth, which I afterwards completely verified. These singers were Cushites, not Shepherds.

I, however, made myself master of two or three of these alternate songs upon the guitar, the wretched instrument of that country; and was surprised to find the words in a language equally strange to Masuah and Abyssinia. I had frequent interviews with these musicians in the evening; they were perfectly black and woolly-headed. Being slaves, they spoke both Arabic and Tigrè, but could sing in neither; and, from every possible inquiry, I found every thing, allied to counterpoint, was unknown among them. I have sometimes endeavoured to recover fragments of these songs, which I once perfectly knew from memory only, but unfortunately I committed none of them to writing. Sorrow, and various misfortunes, that every day marked my stay in the barbarous country to which I was then going, and the necessary part I, much against my will, was for self-preservation forced to take in the ruder occupations of those times, have, to my very great regret, obliterated long ago the whole from my memory.

It is a general custom in Masuah for people to burn myrrh and incense in their houses before they open the doors in the morning; and when they go out at night, or early in the day, they have always a small piece of rag highly fumigated with these two perfumes, which they stuff into each nostril to keep them from the unwholesome air.

The houses in Masuah are, in general, built of poles and bent grass, as in the towns of Arabia; but, besides these, there are about twenty of stone, six or eight of which are two storeys each; though the second seldom consists of more than one room, and that one generally not a large one. The stones are drawn out of the sea as at Dahalac; and in these we see the beds of that curious mussel, or shell-fish, found to be contained in the solid rock at Mahon, called Dattoli da mare, or sea-dates, the fish of which I never saw in the Red Sea; though there is no doubt but they are to be found in the rocky islands about Masuah, if they break the rocks for them.

Although Masuah is situated in the very entrance of Abyssinia, a very plentiful country, yet all the necessaries of life are scarce and dear. Their quality, too, is very indifferent. This is owing to the difficulty, expence, and danger of carrying the several articles through the desert flat country, called Samhar, which lies between Arkeeko and the mountains of Abyssinia; as well as to the extortions exercised by the Naybe, who takes, under the name of customs, whatever part he pleases of the goods and provisions brought to that island; by which means the profit of the seller is so small, as not to be worth the pains and risk of bringing it: 20 rotol of butter cost a pataka and a half, 3½ harf; or, in one term, 45½ harf. A goat is half of a pataka; a sheep, two-thirds of a pataka; the ardep of wheat, 4 patakas; Dora, from Arabia, 2 patakas.

——Venit, vilissima rerum,
Hic aqua.
Horat. lib. I. Sat. 6. v. 88.

Water is sold for three diwanis, or paras, the 7 gallons. The same sort of money is in use at Masuah, and the opposite coast of Arabia; and it is indeed owing to the commercial intercourse with that coast that any coin is current in this or the western side. It is all valued by the Venetian sequin. But glass beads, called Contaria, of all kinds and colours, perfect and broken, pass for small money, and are called, in their language, Borjooke.

Table of the relative value of Money.

Venetian Sequin,2¼Pataka.
Pataka or Imperial Dollar,28Harf.
1 Harf,4Diwani.
10 Kibeer,1Diwani.
1 Kibeer,3Borjooke, or Grains.

The Harf is likewise called Dahab, a word very equivocal, as it means, in Arabic, gold, and frequently a sequin. The Harf is 120 grains of beads.