136 No. 88 ECONOMIC CONDITIONS In the Upper Nile provinces salt is much more difficult to obtain in most localities ; and white European salt is raised to the status of a currency-, one trade spoonful for an egg, six for a chicken, and In some districts porters are paid in white salt for their day's work. Except when deposits or salt lakes occur, the only form of salt available is the dirty brown material extracted from a lye obtained from burnt water -weeds, banana stems, &c .

So on .

(5) MANUFACTURES With the exception of crude iron-smelting to make soft iron implements in the Upper Nile region, and gold-crushing in the Northern Sudan , there are no metallurgic industries of commercial importance. The only native textile industries are the weaving of damur --- a soft , loosely woven cotton stuff — and the “ retting or preparation of various fibres for making ropes and nets . A considerable amount of artistic work is done in silver and gold and in leather for camel saddles, &c . , entirely for local demands. Some rough pottery is made. Kawa (White Nile province) is the centre of a native boat -building industry.

A local production of cement may be developed to a limited extent in connection with irrigation and other engineering projects . In former days, notwithstand ing the length of transport , cement for works in the Sudan was imported from England . The outbreak of war, however, compelled the engineers to consider the possibility ofmaking cement in the country . They were fortunate in finding suitable beds of limestone and other requisite materials. Later, the enormous increase in the cost of coal made the burning of these materials a serious problem , and experiments have been made which justify the belief that timber found in the Blue Nile region, reduced to charcoal , will form an effective substitute for coal , so that cement can be manufactured locally without any other import than that of the machinery required .