KORDOFAN. 303 rule extends ten days' journey further, to Fazogl, where the fine timber in the mountains and the gold-bearing sands of Kasan have given rise to the establishment of a military post.

Sennaar, as well as Kordofan, Berber and Dongola, is governed by a Bey, appointed by the Pasha of Soudan. It is only two weeks' journey thence to Grondar, the capital of Amhara, the principal Abyssinian kingdom. I was told that it is not difficult for merchants to visit -the latter place, but that any one suspected of being a person of consequence is detained there and not allowed to leave agajn. I had a strong curiosity to see something of Abyssinia, and had I been quite sure that I should not be taken for a person of consequence, might have made the attempt to reach Grondar.

Kordofan lies west of the White Nile, and consists entirely of great plains of grass and thorns, except in the southern part, where there is a mountain range called Djebel Dyer, inhabited by emigrants from Dongola. It is not more than two hundred miles in breadth, from east to west. Its capital, Obeid, lies in lat. 13° 12x north, and is a mere collection of mud huts. Mr. Peterick, the English Vice-Consul for Soudan, to whom I had letters from Mr. Murray, the English Consul-Greneral in Cairo, had taken up his residence in Obeid. The soil of Kordofan is sterile, and the water is considered very unhealthy for foreigners. Capt. Peel gave me such a description of its endless thickets of thorns, its miserable population and its devastating fevers, that I lost all desire to visit it.

The Governor, Abd-el-Kader Bey, was in Khartoum, and Dr.

Beitz intended making a journey through the country in company with him. There is a caravan route of twenty days between Obeid and Dongola, through a wild region called the Beyooda,