The incense is used by Somal and all Mahomedan women to perfume themselves. A small earthenware brazier is filled with burning charcoal, on which is sprinkled the incense. Over the brazier the lady stands, covering it and the smoke with her petticoat, should she wear one, or the sheet-like robe that drapes her body. As a result she is well fumigated, and if, afterwards, to the European nostrils she exhales a sickly smell of stale incense what matters it; for European prejudices she cares but little, and her husband has, I regret to state, an abominable taste in scents, and thinks she smells fine. Perhaps she does. In our town the manufactures are few but interesting. There is the old Midgan woman who makes the earthenware pots and water ewers. She is a marvel of expertness. With her fingers she will mould a pot from a piece of mud whilst you are looking at her. There is no wheel, no model; it is all done with the fingers alone. A water vessel with a slender neck appears as if by magic. It is as if she were making passes in the air with her hands, and the thing appears like the Indian conjurer's mango tree. Our pot woman would make her fortune on a London music-hall stage, and she is such a friendly soul; her smile is like a tonic. Then we have iron, silver, and goldsmiths. The former make knives, daggers, spearheads and arrowheads for men, and little household utensils for the women. The silversmiths squat on their mud floors and mould and hammer out all kinds of ornaments: silver anklets, chains, bracelets, neck-amulets, and huge silver beads for the women; silver rings set with huge moon and other cheap stones, the bigger the better, for the men. Terrible affairs these rings, that set one's teeth on edge; but the other ornaments are well made and not at all inartistic. The little silver vessels, covered with filigree work, used to hold the black paint with which the women accentuate their eyebrows, and the henna for staining their fingers, always appeal to me. One silversmith has a box full of every kind of second-hand ornament. One day I was present when he turned it out and I pounced upon one of these paint vessels which he refused to sell. It was in pawn, as were the other articles.