Kordofan-El-' ObeiS. 1t7 1837.] piastre, which, according to the present rate of exchange, is equal to about 2 2d. sterling. Al1 money transactions are made in reals, an imaginary coin, equal in value to 15 piastres.

The troops stationed in KordoSn were marched annually after the kharif to Jebel Nubah for the purpose of capturing slalres from these mountains. These expeditions were called Ghaziyeh,* and when I arrived at El-'Obei(l the troops had just returned with the produce of such an expedition. The handsome wome were s(>kl for the harems of the Turks and Arabs; the ablelsodied men were placed in the ranks; the decrepit of both seses, the pregnant females, and young children, were allotted to the soldiers in lieu of money to the amount of a Inoiety of their arrears. I c)nce witnessed this distribution; and a more heartrending scene cannot be imagined: for, though these blacks had been seized two or three months, and had been deprived of their liberty, th\ey felt severely the final separation from their friends and families. As the soldiers were many months in arrear, they were obliged to receive the slaves consitlerably abore their value, and sell tilem again at a great sacrifice; and many were compelled to turn their slaves into money, in order to relieve their immediate embarrassments. A slave, therefore, who had been received by two soldiers in lieu of 300 piastres, was solfl in the bazar for little more than half that sum; and many were daily hawked about and dispose(l of by public auction.

The slaves are of various prices, a child 4 or 5 years old is worth 5() or 60 piastres (lOs. or ] Qs.); an adult selis from 41. to 61. Beautiful Dar-fuwi girls are in great request; and an unexceptionable looking one will fetch from 15l. to 201. Abyssinian women are much in demand, and sell from 101. to 201. a-head. But, for domestic purposes, slaves from Dar-fur are preferred.

Up to the period of my visiting Kordofan, the bodies of negroes and criminals were never interred, but thrown outside the town to be devoured by birds and beasts of prey. When Mohammed Bey succeeded Mustafa Bey as governor, one of his first orders was to collect and burn all the human bones in the vicinity of El-'Obeid, and to direct that slaves, in filture, should be interre(l according to the Mohammedan rites of sepulture.

But the most distressing circumstance resulting from the slave trade, and one more than any other calculated to excite our sympathy, is the system of emasculation carried on at El-'Obeid. This * It is gratifying to add that, owing to representations I made to Dr. Bowring, when he was in Egypt, he succeeded in obtaining a promise from Mohammed 'Ali l'fisha to abolish the Ghaziyehs in the BelEd-es-Sudan, to discontinue paying the troops in slaves, and to punish slave dealing amongst the soldierx. Axld there seems reason to believe, from vhat I have siltce heard, that his orders have bee carried into eSect.