And in the centre of the square stood or sat
the natives, buying and selling, chaffering and gesticulating. Some
were Bishareens, with straight forms and features, and black bodies
almost covered with long strings and chains of beads. They stood
about gracefully to be admired, with their wooly hair fluffed out
at right angles to their head, for the occasion. Some were
corn-merchants, sitting leisurely before a heap of golden grain
piled up loosely on the ground. Others stood by patiently with
their fowls or goats or camels, feeding them with green fodder; and
others had vivid scarlet rugs and carpets of native make spread out
on the uneven ground. And all day long the noise of the merchants,
and the cry of the fowls, and the groan of the camels, and the
dust of the square, and the smoke of the cooking fires went up from
the bazaar.
In one corner of it, on a square of blue carpet, spread beneath his
camel's nose, sat a merchant who had been observed to come early to
the fair. He appeared to be a man of some substance, for he was
clothed, and the camel kneeling beside him was fat and sleek, and
would easily make two of the thin camels of Khartoum. Opposite him,
sitting on his heels and holding out two lean hands to tend the
small fire that smoked between them, was another, obviously poorer,
from his smaller amount of dress and flesh.
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