These houses present another and very desirable advantage, putting aside the consideration that the material costs a mere trifle and the building but little trouble; for every man can have his house carried away, by ten or twelve men, in two divisions, and quickly again erected in a different place, if the site did not please him, or a disagreeable neighbour rendered his prior residence unpleasant to him. If fire break out in a village, no attempt is made to extinguish it, as it would be labour in vain, but the houses nearest to the seat of conflagration are conveyed out of the reach of danger, and a limit is thus put to the raging element. Whole villages are sometimes carried away, when an insect happens to infest the neighbourhood, and renders residence in a certain district insupportable. The animal is the ricinus,[17] called there “kurat;” it harbours in the sand, whence it issues, in astonishing numbers, to attack those who may happen to sit down on the sand naked, as the negroes do. This little animal then immediately approaches and bites most severely. The camels stand in great awe of it, immediately take flight, and cannot be made to stop in a place where it is to be met with. The sting of this insect is only to be avoided by sitting on straw mats, for they seldom creep upon these. Every family possesses an additional hut, (called “moraka,”) in which the flour necessary for the consumption of the house is ground. This operation is performed in a hollow stone, a species of rude mortar, which is fixed into the ground, whilst a girl, generally a slave, reduces the grain (dokn) with another cylindrical stone to a powder. In a family consisting of eight persons, one girl would be occupied throughout the whole year in grinding the necessary quantity of corn. This simple labour requires great exertion, and is only to be performed by girls who have attained their fourteenth year, younger children being unequal to the task. Even grown persons suffer considerably in this occupation, for it requires no slight exertion to roll a heavy stone all day long backwards and forwards in the heat of these huts; the poor creatures thus employed are generally bathed in perspiration, and yet they may be heard singing all day long. Their songs are certainly merely expressive of their desire to escape, or of longing after their homes. The chaunts are very peculiar, and, with few exceptions, the impromptu pouring-forth of the feelings of the singer, according to the custom prevalent over nearly the whole of the East.