AN "AFFREET'' FLOUR-MILL. 53 Anything would grow here, as the soil is very rich ; but the people are very lazy and unenterprising, and all they care about is to produce enough for their absolute necessities : they do not attempt to grow anything new. The two great drawbacks that any one would have to contend against, who wished to try and do something in the way of growing such a thing as cotton (which might be cultivated to any extent) in the Soudan, are the laziness and apathy of the inhabitants, hostility to innovation, and the cost of transit. As regards labour, I really believe it would be necessary to introduce fellaheen, a most industrious class, from Egypt ; and I understand that the experiment has been tried to a very limited extent, and with success, on the White Nile. I am afraid that very few of the agriculturists of the Soudan have studied Adam Smith carefully.

A few years ago an enterprising Englishman, after great trouble and considerable expense, built a flour-mill at Cassala, with which he was able to grind dhurra for about one-eighth the price the natives are accustomed to pay for it. However, popular superstition was too much for him ; they refused to have their dhurra ground in his mill, as they said it was affreet,' or pertaining to the devil. So, after struggling on for some time, he was obliged to give it up ; and the deserted mill now remains as a memorial to the ignorance of the inhabitants.

A great deal of dhurra was growing when we were there ; and caravans laden with this grain constantly arrived from the south, a great deal of it being brought by the Arabs as taxes. The government often buy it, paying the Shukreeyeh Arabs who bring it from the neighbourhood of Gallabat and Gedariff, and the Hamrans when they send any from their country on the Settite River, with salt instead of money.

Cassala is rich in hyaenas, chiefly the spotted variety, although we did not find them as numerous as we had done four years