THE KUBBABEESH. 137 compensation for damage sustained. The gum is forwarded immediately after it has been collected from the trees, when four cantari constitute a camel-load. The distance from Kordofan to Dongola, is twenty days' journey. Wind and heat will dry gum, and it of course decreases in bulk and weight ; much is, moreover, lost on the road, in consequence of the slovenly manner in which it is packed. Arrived at Dongola, it is left several days lying in the sun before it is weighed, the natural consequence of this exposure is, that each load suffers a considerable reduction in weight.

All this loss the sheikh has to make good, and in effecting the arrangement, the gum is calculated at the price at which the government sells it in Alexandria to the Europeans ; thus the sheikh frequently only receives a quarter of the sum agreed upon for the freight, and not even this pittance in ready money, for he is finally compelled to accept cotton-stuff, manufactured at Dongola, in lieu of payment, taking the piece sold by the government in the same place for twelve piasters, at a value of twenty piasters. Goaded to the utmost by oppressions of this description, the subjects of a small sheikh determined, in the year 1838, to leave Kordofim, and settle in Darfour. The poor people, however, gained nothing by this movement, but fell, as the proverb has it, out of the frying-pan into the fire; for on their arrival at Darfour, where they intended to place themselves under the protection