SPLENDID SOIL. 99 loving wandering much more, they prefer bai'tering their durra for cloths made at Hedjas, to growing and preparing such themselves. But yet what might not be made of this splendid land, the fruitfulness of wliich is so well nourislied by the moisture of subterraneous waters, the regular fall of rain, and overflows from the Abyssinian mountains and the hills of Kassela, Abrit, &c.,—a soil that, in spite of hurricanes and the ever repeated forest burnings, never ceases to produce splendid trees, and crops of tallest durra, without tilling or manure, with stalks of fifteen and twenty feet in height, and yielding fifteen and eighteen fold of the best sort and fullest ear, growing cotton within one year to a height of five feet. What, I ask, might not be done with and grown on such a soil ? And what is it now ? Nothing ! save this durra, some little cotton, and a few beans ;— this durra, the straws or stalk of which are left standing on the fields, the cattle turned in to feed on it, then left to wind and weather, not to decay, and so return something to the soil as manure, but to be almost wholly swept away by the floods in the rainy season ; this from the extraordinary moderation of the natives answers all their wants; for with it, a little milk, and a few beans, all their wants and desires in the way of food are fully satisfied. Undoubtedly all our grains and vegetables would grow splendidly here, so that this land might be made the granary for the grain-needing Hedjas, which is only saved from famine by the gratis delivery of the whole annual crop from the district round Kenne ; or when this is insufficient, has to be fed from the lands of Slnt and Manfallut in Egypf. Indigo miorht be cultivated here as well as in Egypt, where its culture is by no means inconsiderable ; rice also, tobacco, oil, flax, and especially | sugar, which, from the quantity of wood in the neighbourhood might be refined on the spot, whereas it has now to be brought from India. A matter of high Importance would also be the planting of date trees. For many days' journey from Gos Rajeb, the banks of the river are covered with dhora forests ; here, too, in certain spots are to be seen magnificent dliom trees, and where these flourish, all the date tribe will do so ; and this miglit be a source of much profit, as in Egypt. Gum-trees we have as yet seen none, many as are their uses. Where now old useless fruitless trees cumber the ground, might soon flourish, oranges, sweet and bitter n a