118 Balir el Gliazal Country.

where the sorghum, is little known because rarely cultivated, it is simply called 'clurra.' Throughout the Sudan it has exclusively the appellation of t uis% i.e., 'bread.'"

There are three other kinds of corn. Next to the sorghum conies the penicillaria, or Arabian dokhn, which is cultivated here more freely than in Northern Sudan* It is sown later than the sorghum.

The second is a meagre grain, called by the Arabs telabun and by the Abyssinians toccusso. It is only grown on the poorest soils when the ground is too wet for any other -crop. It yields a miserable grain. The Niam-Niam, who are its principal growers, and the Abyssinians, make beer of it.

The third kind is the maize of the country. It is only grown in moderate quantities, and as a garden vegetable. The Madi tribe of the. Mittu are the only people who grow it to any great extent.

The flour produced will not make bread such as we are accustomed to. Arab bread is a fermented dough, tough and leathery, or, if risen, it becomes a crumbling mass. All corn in the tropics has some constituent which produces these effects.

The process of cultivation is very simple, and consists in merely placing the seed in holes. There is no stuff for manuring the land, so that if the crops were increased to any extent with the view of ameliorating the condition of the people, the soil would be exhausted in a year or two.

Wheat does not thrive. Rice has not been tried, but would probably be wel!

adapted to the soil. In the whole district south of the Bahr el Ghazal the wild rice of Senegal grows freely, and is of good quality.

There are numerous vegetables cultivated by the Bongo r such as the mungo bean, which they call boTtiva\ the earth nut ; sesame, to which the Bongo give importance second only to sorghum. Various kinds of yams are also seen ; gourds of two principal kinds, the white and the yellow. The onion is unknown below the southern limits of Kordofan and Darfur.

Compared with Africa in general, this district is deficient in spices.

Tobacco culture receives a good deal of attention.