- THE EGYPTIAN SUDAN carried off to fight, and the girls of eight or nine years of age and upwards had become the wives of the Khahfa's followers.

The poverty of the villagers of Barkal was abject; their drink was usually water, which as often as not they scooped up with their hands from the- channels in the fields, and their food consisted of thin cakes made from dhurra, partially baked either in the ashes or on a hot s'tone, and dates. The shekh told me that fifteen different kinds of dates grew at Barkal, and the soil is especially good for date palms. It has always been a matter of wonder to me that the Dervishes did not cut them down as they did further north, in the villages along the banks of the Nile at the Second Cataract. Each kind of date had its own name, which indicated its characteristics, but that which most Europeans appreciate is the sultant, or " royal " date.

It is short, fleshy, and dark-coloured, and when ripe is very good. The Shaikiya, like the Prophet, love dates and water-melons, and they remember that he said, " Honour your paternal aunt, the " date palm, for she was created of the eirth of which Adam was " formed." Coffee I saw in very few houses, but tea was more common, and though tobacco was greatly prized, only here and there would be found a man who could afford to buy it. The greater number of the natives of Barkal lived in palm-leaf houses among the palms ; in summer these abodes were pleasant enough, but at the end of the year their inhabitants suffered greatly from cold. Many houses, or tukuls, contained a sort of inner room, into which the family huddled at night and slept, but frequently, for the sake of the handful of fire which was kindled in the outer room, the men and boys squatted there and talked most of the night The furniture of a house consisted of one or two ankaribs, or native bedsteads, a few water-pots, cooking pots, and a gourd or two, in which liquids were carried. Any store of dliurra and dates was kept in coarse earthenware jars, or in holes in the ground. Most people were astir at dawn, wh ;n the matrons went down to the river and bathed, and brought back jars full of water for drinking purposes. The men looked after the crops, and, whilst I was at Gebel Barkal, spent most of the day in watching the gathering and the drying of the dates. A great many men seemed to have nothing to do, and a number 212 i