They Are Great Drunkards, Very
Quarrelsome, And Are Bad Servants, As, Although They Will Work
Hard For Themselves, They Will Do As Little As They Can For Their
Master.
They are seldom unemployed; and, while the Arab may be
seen lazily stretched under the shade of a tree, the Tokroori
will be spinning cotton, or working at something that will earn
a few piastres.
Even during the march, I have frequently seen my
men gather the cotton from some deserted bush, and immediately
improvise a spindle, by sticking a reed through a piece of
camel-dung, with which they would spin the wool into thread, as
they walked with the caravan. My Tokrooris had never been idle
during the time they had been in my service, but they were at
work in the camp during every spare minute, either employed in
making sandals from elephant's or buffalo's hide, or whips and
bracelets from the rhinoceros' skin, which they cleverly
polished. Upon our arrival at Gallabat, they had at least a
camel-load of all kinds of articles they had manufactured. On the
following morning I found them sitting in the market-place,
having established stalls, at which they were selling all the
various trophies of their expedition--fat, hides, whips, sandals,
bracelets, &c.
The district inhabited by the Tokrooris is about forty miles in
length, including a population of about twenty thousand.
Throughout the country, they have cultivated cotton to a
considerable extent, notwithstanding the double taxes enforced by
both Abyssinians and Egyptians, and their gardens are kept with
extreme neatness.
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