The punishments are beating with a stick on the hands or feet and whipping, which is not unfrequently practised.

Their pens are reeds--their rubber sand.

While learning their tasks, and perhaps each boy has a different one, they all read aloud, so that the harmony of even a dozen boys may be easily imagined.
In the time of the native sultans, it was the custom, on a fixed day, annually, for the boys who had completed their education, to assemble on horseback, in as fine clothes as their friends could procure for them, on the sands to the westward of the town.

On an eminence stood the fighi, bearing in his hand a little flag rolled on a staff; the boys were stationed at some distance, and on his unfurling the flag and planting it in the ground, all started at full speed.

He who first arrived and seized it, was presented by the sultan with a fine suit of clothes, and some money, and rode through the town at the head of the others.