68 Barfur.

The Arab population have, as a rule, kept themselves unmixed from the For, the Tukruri, and the other races. The Homr tribe originally came, it is said, from Marocco.

There is, in addition to the above, a nomad tribe called the Zoghawa, but these are of negro extraction, and have onlv assumed the nomad life.

The Arabs are, for the most part, great hunters ; they go out after ostriches to the desert, for five or six days at a time, in small bands with about 10 camels. They are also warlike, constant feuds taking place either between the Arab tribes themselves or with the village-dwelling people, the easus belli being usually cattle stealing or some such provocation.

Truth is little known among them, and immorality universal, in consequence of which there is much disease.

The Fors are clean and industrious. They will be found assembled under trees, spinning, weaving cotton, or plaiting mats ; the children being employed in herding the cattle. On the women falls the heavier occupation of grinding corn and carrying wood and water.

The Fors are not particular in the matter of food ; corn is the main article of consumption, and they drink quantities of merissa. On festivals they make a compound of meal, water, and a gravy made from meat, and flavoured with pepper. They occasionally add roasted grasshoppers or caterpillars.

They are religious and even fanatical. In every village there are several fiki, who teach the children and perform the office of scribes for the older part of the population.

The Fors live in tukls or conical huts, five or six of which, arranged in a circle, form a habitation.

Very few foreign wares are found among the Fors, but they have home manufactures of their own, which suffice for the wants of the mass of the population, the chiefs alone using imported stuffs.

The men wear a large mantle and trousers, but have their heads and feet bare. The women use a piece of cotton stuff, which they throw over their shoulders and make fast about their hips. When under the rule of its own Sultan, Darfur was divided into four provinces, which answered to the four quarters of the compass.

Dar er Rih (north), Dar es Soba (east), Dar es Said (south)* and Dar el Ghnrb (west). Each province was