Population. 53 During the rainy season they plant, cultivate, and gather their one crop. The meal of the dokhn is prepared by crushing the grain between two stones ; and beer, merissa, is made from the same material. The procuring of water is a serious question for them, as it has to be drawn from deep wells perhaps at 5 or 6 hours distant. Some of the villagers have small herds of cattle, goats, and a very few sheep ; and in certain places small plots of beans, pea-nuts, cotton, and sesame are grown.

Special trades are very rare : occasional basketmakers are to be found, and in some villages ironworkers, who forge rude hoes, knives, and hatchets.

The villagers of the interior are poor spirited and unambitious. Extreme sloth is their principal characteristic; neither food nor money will tempt them to work, and only the lash is effective for the purpose. For centuries they have made no improvement in their system of cultivation, which is most primitive ; though in constant contact with tbe Baggara, and other neighbours who use horses, dromedaries, and camels, they have never learnt to breed and train any animal for burden except a miserable race of donkey.

2. The nomad tribes comprise cattle-breeders (Baggara) Nomads. and camel-breeders (Siat llbil). Although the Baggara have come to be looked on as one large tribe or race, this Baggara.

is not the case: the word simply means "connected with cattle," and under this heading there are many tribes distinct in race. On the whole, however, all the Baggara have much the same characteristics. They cultivate little, and have no trades, living principally on the produce of their herds. Their chief occupations are hunting and war; the latter they wage incessantly upon each •other, and upon the mountain tribes. These thousands of turbulent and daring horsemen plunder cattle and slaves, and are a most dangerous clement in the population of Kordofan. They speak a tolerably pure Sudan-Arabic, and seem to spread rapidly at the expense of less favoured races. They are far superior mentally and physically to the village population : as a rule, they live in camps, seldom in permanent villages ; they wander about with their herds according to the varying conditions of water and pasturage. The favourite camping-grounds of the Baggara are along the watercourse known as