1 — 78 — VITAL STATISTICS.

The returns of births and deaths can be considered to be approximately correct in the northern provinces, i.e. Khartoum, Berber, Dongola Province and in the Wadi-Halfa Merkaz (in the remainder of Haifa Province the people are thinly scattered over a rocky barren strip of country bordering the river which is largely broken up by cataracts, and for this reason accurate returns are difficult to obtain and verify).

In these northern provinces a fairly close administration has been carried out for over 20 years, the people from father to son are stationary on the land which they cultivate by water-wheel irrigation. The returns are collected by maazuns whose primary dut}' it is to register marriages. There is a Maazun in these provinces for every 3 or 4 villages and lie has, therefore, no difficulty in obtaining the returns.

The accuracy of the returns for the Blue Nile Province has been very much improved, but they cannot yet be considered to be correct. There the villages are thickly scattered over a wide area and the maazuns are too few to be able to obtain accurate returns. The duty has therefore been handed over to the omdas and sheikhs and the returns, although not yet complete or correct, are steadily improving.

The births and deaths, and still-births for 1927 and 1928 in these provinces are given below. The higher death-rate and lower-birtli rate in the Blue Nile Province are attributed to the high malaria rate in the early part of 1928 following heavy autumn rains and a warm winter. The birth-rate is expected to show a compensatory increase in 1929 as the women who miscarried owing to malaria in 1928 will have children in 1929 instead of waiting the accustomed two years and nine months, the period occupied in lactation and pregnancy.

NON-EUROPEAN VITAL STATISTICS.

Province. 1925 Per 1000 1926 Per 1000 1927 Pei-1000 1928 Per 1000 Khartoum:— Births 3393 14.07 3709 15.2 3542 14.7 3646 35.1 Deaths 1962 8.1 2115 8.7 1567 10.6 2646 10.9 Still births 153 0.6 115 .47 114 .47 133 .5 Berber:— Births 3456 22.8 4178 27.6 4271 28.2 4343 28.7 Deaths 2107 13.9 2952 19.5 2509 16.6 3453 22.8 Still births 71 .46 52 .34 71 .46 102 .74