THE EGYPTIAN SUDAN slave trade flourished, opium and hashish were imported openly into the Sudan, both from Egypt and Sawakin, but when Great Britain took the management of the Nile Valley into her hands the importation of the latter drug was prohibited, and it could only be obtained by smuggling. In spite of the prohibition, however, quantities of hashish found its way into the country, and the shifts and devices invented by the natives to get it were worthy of a better cause. It is said that the sailors and labourers at the ports of Egypt used to walk ashore in sandals, the soles of which were stuffed with the leaves of Indian hemp. Little by little, however, the importation of the drug diminished, and Lord Cromer tells us (" Egypt," No. i, 1904, p. \2) that the price of hashish in Egypt that year was higher than it had ever been before. Two grains were placed in a pipe, which was passed round among eight men until it was empty. The value of two grains was five farthings, and the eight men paid for it in all ten farthings, i.e., the retail profit on the drug was one hundred per cent. In the Sudan, however, it was sought after chiefly as an aphrodisiac, for the desire there for ofl'spring is very strong. Anmlets and spells of every kind were employed by the natives for obtaining children, and an employe of the Egyptian Government at Mansura told me that Sudani women eat the bodies of bright green beetles after they have been fried in oil, believing that they will make them prolific. This is an interesting fact, for it shows that the ideas which the ancient Egyptians held about the beetle being the symbol of generative and creative power, and the type of fertility, have survived in the Sudan. The head and wings of a beetle boiled in snake fat formed a potent charm against the powers of evil, according to old Egyptian belief, and the modern Egyptian boils the insect in sheep fat and eats it, with the object of curing internal disorders.

In some cases at Barkal the belief in the immutability of a Divine decree was ineradicable, as the following instances will show. One night Shekh Muhammad came and asked for some medicine for a specific purpose, saying that his " house," i.e., some woman member of it, was ill. He took the tabloids and went away, and next day told me that they had had the desired effect. A few days later he asked for medicine of a different kind, 222 1