But the most fascinating sight of all is the sook, or market. The mixture of races is amazing. It would take a trained scientist to catalogue them all. From a camel to a silver bracelet, there is nothing dear to a native that cannot be bought. Here are made and sold the angarebs, or native bedsteads, woven with string across a low four-legged wooden framework. As yet these people have not much mechanical ingenuity, and their appliances for working in wood and iron or other metals are rude in the extreme. The past in the Soudan has not been conducive to the development of the arts, but there is promise for the future. One feature of the place is the curiosity shops, full of many strange spears and shields, knives and sabres, and occasionally an iron gauntlet or coat of mail such as the dervishes wore; but these are rare now. These Arab shopmen know how to drive a hard bargain, and love nothing better than chaffering over a price. All curiosities are called ‘antiquos.’ There is an annual flower-show in Khartoum, at which a prize is given for the best ‘antiquos.’ A Soudanese turned up who was very anxious to compete for this prize with a live porcupine, which he insisted was an ‘antiquo.’ He was allowed to exhibit at last, but not for competition, on condition that he himself led it about by a string, as the authorities could not undertake its charge. With more justice a live tortoise is also commonly offered for sale as a very choice ‘antiquo.’ In another quarter are the rope-makers, twisting their long coils of fibre in exactly the same way as they have been twisted for centuries; further on, the basket and net makers are weaving dried reeds in curious patterns. Yet another part is entirely devoted to the needs of women. Here are combs and strings of all kinds of beads, unguents, and the strange preparations they use for fixing the small plaits in which they tie their hair; cinnamon bark and other scents, without which no wedding is complete; cooking-pots and other articles of their scanty domestic furniture; even dolls of most weird and fantastic shapes and material, and many other quaint trifles. The whole place is crowded with women, black and brown, many of them tall in stature, easy and graceful in their movements, and, however ugly they may be in other respects, nearly all with the most beautifully shaped arms. It is a strange contrast to go a little further on through the western outskirts of the town, and to find a game of polo proceeding on the hard desert sand. And beyond, again, in the middle of these great spaces, far from the rush and turmoil of the town, are the quiet graves of two or three of those who have laid down their lives in this far country, and shall see their homes no more.