180 Mr. HOLROYD'S Journey {o Kordofan.

[1837. bilbil, and merisah. The women are more frugal in their diet than the men, and rarely eat animal food.

The prevailing diseases are fever, dysentery, and small-pox, the latter being very destructive. The plague is unknown here, and ophthalmia a disease of very rare occurrence. Senna (Cassia Senna) is indigenous and very abundant in KordofEn. Round the town there are twenty or twenty-five very large trees, called Tebeldir or Hamra: I have no doubt they ale the monkey-bread (Adansania digttata), as they bear a fruit of an oval form, something like the vegetable marrow, and when dried, the natives eat the inner substance, which is white and farinaceous, surrounding irregularly-formed brown seeds. The flavour of this fruit is a pleasant acid. I measured the circumference of one o? these trees at the base, and found it to be 48 feet. White ants (termites) abound at E1 'Obeid, and commit great devastation. There are a few dogs which belong to nobody, but not so many as at Khartum and Sennar hynenas are frequently seen in the neighbourhood. ithin a few days' journey from E1 'Obeid the camelopard is found, and Mustafa Bey had procured six the year before I was there, but from want of proper management all l)ut one llad die(l. There is a beautiful variety of the goat at Kordofan: it is not indigenous, but was originally brought from Jobel Nubah, where it is wild, but when taken is easily domesticated: the same species is foun(l in Jebel Fungi, to the south of Sennar.

The e2mports, with the exception of slaves, are entirely monopolised lJy the government: they consist of gold, silver, hides, iYory) and gum Arabic. Slaves are allowed to be exported from Kordofan on the payment of a heavy duty.

On the 14th of April Mr. Rusegger, a German mineralogist, employed by Mohammed 'Ali, arrived at E1 'Obeid on his way to Shabun to inspect the gold-mines.

Seven miles to the S.E. of El 'Obeid is the village of lAIillaess, beautifully situated, and the summer residence of the principal persons in authority. The land here is rich and productive; good water is found in shallow wells, of which the inhatitants avail themselves for artificial irrigation, raising it by manual labour. Half a mile to the W. of Milbess are some hills about 140 feet high, the formation of which is primitive quartz, and from the summit of any of them there is an extensive view of the desert, and of Jebel Dair,* about 25 miles to the S., a small chain of mountains which, though only one day's journey from E1 'Obeicl, is not yet subject to WIohammefl 'A1f Pasha, and is the favourite resort of slaves who have absconded from the capital.

* The Dyre and Tuggala Mountains of Bruce.-F. S