These entire skins are afterwards made into sacks by the apertures around the neck and legs being secured by a double fold of the skin being sewed upon each other, by means of a slender but very tough thong. These small seams are rendered quite air-tight, and the larger orifice around the haunches being gathered together by the hands, the yet raw skin is distended with air, and the orifice being then tied up, the swollen bag is left in that state for a few days until slight putrefaction has commenced, when the application of the rough stone soon divests its surface of the hair. After this has been effected, a deal of labour, during at least one day, is required to soften the distended skin by beating it with heavy sticks, or trampling upon it for hours together, the labourer supporting himself by clinging to the bough of a tree over head, or holding on by the wall of the house. In this manner, whilst the skin is drying, it is prevented from getting stiff, and still further to secure it from this evil condition, it is frequently rubbed with small quantities of butter. When it is supposed that there is no chance of the skin becoming hard and easily broken, the orifice is opened, the air escapes, and a very soft flaccid leather bag is produced, but which, for several days after, affords an amusement to the owner, when otherwise unemployed, by well rubbing it all over with his hands. Almost all the produce of the fields is conveyed to the market in such sacks as these--cotton, grain, and the Berberah pepper. It is even the only moneybag employed to carry home the salt returns for the different wares that have been sold. None other could have been employed by Joseph’s brethren when they loaded their asses and went down into Egypt; for none are more naturally the resources of a shepherd people, or better adapted by their form and size for the little useful animal which seems to have been as universally employed by the Jews as by the Amhara of the present day. By a species of gratitude, sincere as it is deserved, _hiyah_, the word signifying _ass_, is used by the latter people as another designation for friend; and I well remember the mistake of a learner of that language who went into a great rage by being accosted “hiyah” by an Amhara friend. The skins of sheep and of small goats are made into parchment by being more particularly divested of the fleshy fibres with the rough stone, and then, after the hairs have been removed by putrefaction, simply drying in the sun. For this purpose, it is stretched in a favourable situation, a few inches from the ground, by a number of small wooden pegs, which are inserted into small apertures made in the edge of the skin, and it is thus prevented from becoming corrugated during the process of drying.