92 Benndr.

a piece of open ground and cultivate it, but cannot claim the produce as a right until he has taken in all the crops.

The work of the fields is all done by slaves. The upper classes spend a life of indolence and dissipation. All classes love intoxication, and drink either merissa or brandy distilled from it. They are not particular in their food, and, though Mohammedans, do not refuse pork, or the entrails of camels, sheep, or cattle.

Their favourite dish is liver, which they devour raw. They live, however, as a rule, on nothing but dhura cooked with water ; and frequently fast for several days without complaining.

Belilah is a decoction of dhura and water.

Merissa, a kind of beer, is made from dhura or dokhn by boiling it for a whole night and then letting it ferment. That subjected only to a slight fermentation is reserved for the priests and devout Mussulmans.

Bilbel is merissa more carefully made from the best grain.

Logma, the chief article of food of the poor, corresponds to the polta of the Italian peasantry. It is a sort of paste made out of ground dhura and water and milk.

Ebreh is the same paste made into thin wafers.

Kesra, or bread, is also made of thin paste, baked for a few minutes on a hot iron or stone.

Meat is roasted or hung up and smoked. When dried for keeping it is called JEl-kadid.

Salt is scarce and not pure. Some of the natives chew a preparation of tobacco or stramonium, which frequently produces fits of insanity.

They possess some surgical art, can amputate and perform other difficult operations ; they also practise inoculation for smallpox.

They are skilful as weavers, goldsmiths, curriers, potters, &c, and in the Sudan are celebrated for superior workmanship.

The people, though professing the faith of the Koran, observe hardly any of its precepts ; they never wash nor pray, and most of their villages are without mosques.

The houses of Sennar of the present day are built of sun-dried bricks, and roofed with halfa (a grass), dhura straw, or reeds. Formerly there were many houses of