Produce. 59 On a journey the grain is eaten raw, or simply boiled ; in the house it is crushed between stones, mixed with water, and baked in thin wafers, Jcissera, or boiled into a thick soup, asida, with bits of meat or leaves. It is also made into a crude sweetish beer, merissa. which is drunk in enormous quantities.

The dokhn is also produced north of the 13th parallel, and in the neigbourhood of lakes El Birket and El Rahad.

A succession of unfavourable years for dokhn caused a famine about 1874, and many people died of starvation.

The quantity of dhura produced is small as compared with that of dokhn, and comes chiefly from the mountain districts.

Cultivation is performed in a most primitive manner, with hoes and instruments for making holes in which to place the dokhn. When ripe, the ears are broken off, dried, and beaten with sticks to separate the corn, which is finally winnowed by small fans.

Sesame, wheat, bamieh (okra), onions, cotton, and tobacco are cultivated in the districts where water is most abundant, but owing to the scarcity of moisture the crops are insignificant.

Salt.—Salt is produced by evaporation from three Salt, groups of wells in lat. 14° 20' long. 30° 45' ; it is dark coloured and bitter.

Iron.—There are two ore beds, one almost 60 miles to iron, the north-east of El Obeid, and the other about 50 miles to the north-west. The ore is brown hematite, and is found in small fragments at a little depth in the sand. It may exist in large quantities. This iron can never be worked economically, as there is no material for building furnaces, or fuel ; nor could it be shipped with profit without a railroad.

Gum.—The best comes from the gray-barked acacias Gum.

(hashab) which abound in East Kordofan, between latitudes 12° 30' and 13° 30'. Taiara is the chief point for collection. It is more or less abundant in all parts of the province. Considerable quantities come from Magenis, in the north-west.

There are immense forests of red-barked acacia (latch) in the south ; the gum is of a certain value, though inferior