different sizes, from three-quarters to two feet in diameter and half an inch thick. They are much employed in exchange. This is the form in which they are kept and used as money, but they are intended to be divided into two, heated and made into hoes. They are also fashioned into other implements, such as knives, arrow-heads, etc. and into little bells hung round the waist for ornament or round wandering cows’ necks. Ready-made hoes are not often used in barter. Iron as above-mentioned is preferred and is taken to the blacksmith to be fashioned according to the owner’s requirements. Any tools may be obtained ready made from a smith, and can be used in barter when new.
“Compensation for killing a woman or any serious crime must be paid for in cattle. No cowries are used as coins in this district, no measure of weight, quantity or length is used. The payment for a wife must be made in cows of a year old, or in bulls of two or three years55.”
But it is in Darfour and Wadai that we find the primitive system in its fullest form. Wives are bought with cows, 20 of which with a male and female slave are the usual price of a wife, hence the Darfouris prefer daughters to sons. Hence the proverb that girls fill the stable, but boys empty it, which recalls the cow-winning maidens of Homer (παρθένοι ἀλφεσίβοιαι). There is absolutely no metal of any kind in Darfour, except that which is imported. Having no money, they accept certain articles as having a certain monetary value.
Facher was the first place in Darfour which had anything like a currency; it consisted of rings made of tin, which were employed in the purchase of every-day necessaries of life. These rings are called tarneih in Darfouris. There are two kinds, the heavy ring and the light ring; the light serves for buying the most trivial articles. For purchasing articles of value they have the toukkiyeh , a piece of cotton cloth six cubits long by one broad. There are two kinds of this stuff, chykeh and katkât . Four pieces of the former and 4½ pieces of the latter are worth a Spanish dollar. Buying and selling