The market, or “kaskú,”[43] occupied a great deal of my time and of my thoughts during my monotonous stay in this place, not so much on account of its importance as of my own poverty, as I was compelled to become a retail dealer on the smallest scale; for, hardly possessing anything except a small quantity of needles, I was obliged to send one of my servants daily to the market, in order to endeavour, by means of that very trifling article of European industry, to obtain the currency of the country. The currency of Bagírmi consists in strips of cotton, or fárda, like those which I have described on my journey to Ádamáwa—of very irregular measures, longer or shorter, in general of two “drʿa” length, and a hand in width—but of very different quality. Larger articles are bought and sold with shirts, “khalag (_pl._ kholgán”), as they are called by the Arabs, “bol,” as they are called by the natives, the value of which, according to their size and quality, varies from 70 to 150 fárda. I obtained a fárda for one large English darning-needle, or for four common German needles; but afterwards I doubled the price. Besides these I had very little left, with the exception of a few looking-glasses of that round kind which are sold in Lyons for one _sou_ each, and which I sold here for the high price of one shirt or “khalag,” while a better sort of looking-glass, bought in London for eightpence, brought four khalag or kholgán, which are worth about a dollar. As for shells, called here “kemé-kemé,” they have no currency in the market, but form a merchandise by themselves, as an article of export into the pagan countries—at least those of larger size, which are in great request with the inhabitants of those countries as well as with the Welád Ráshid, it being said that 2,000 will fetch a young slave of the kind called “khomási,” and 3,000 a “sedási;” for those simple people not only wear these shells as ornaments, especially the women, who are said to cover their hinder parts with them, but they make also caps of them, with which they adorn the heads of their deceased relations, while the Welád Ráshid adorn principally the heads of their camels and horses with the favourite kemé-kemé, or “kémti,” as they are called in Wádáy.