POSSIBLE IMPROVEMENT. 101 sheep, wool might be added, while at present these animals are only used for their flesh, and that not as a source of gain. Even the very beasts of prey, lions, tigers, panthers, &c., although their numbers would certainly much diminish with a better cultivation of the land, might for many years to come be a source of great profit in their skins and furs. This the natives would soon find out, and with the knowledge of their value would soon evince the wish to procure them, even though at the cost of a little toil and danger. But most of all would the cotton, at present grown only in such small quantities as not to suffice for the wants of the land, become a trading object of the highest importance. When one beholds in what abundance and beauty it flourishes, even under the present careless and low culture, one must at once be convinced what an immense crop might be produced, merely by some little more attention being bestowed on it. Here there would be no need, as there is in Egypt, to provide for the regular watering of the plants, a work of immense labour ; and to this great advantage it is to be added, that the larger mass of the people have at least some acquaintance with the management of this crop,—an advantage inestimable with a race that clings so inveterately to all that is handed down to them from ancient times, manners, habits, customs, modes of life and labour, and who look upon each changeand innovation as a diminution of the dignity of tlieir free descent, and a violation of their hereditary rights from oldest time. Trade in elephants' teeth and tusks there is at present almost none, although, from the immense numbers of these animals, such might be furnished in abundance by the natives, and much more easily and readily than those brought, with long delay and much trouble, from the distant country of Darfur.

A great saving on the other hand miglit be made by discontinuing the expenditure at present laid out in the purchase of horses from Ilabesch; the breed, too, is small and ugly, and it is only too evident that here far better animals might be bred and reared. If these and the numerous oxen were trained and employed in agriculture, what a large body of men would be left disposable for other branches of industry — by their employment, arrangemr-nts might be made for a general and regular irrigation of the whole country. At present many large fields are, for irrigating purposes, intersected u 3