SHILLUK, NUBA, TAKELE, ETC. 169 j>erforation, and rub the two together with extraordinary rapidity, throwing a few grains of sand occasionally into the hole to augment the friction.

This is a labour demanding great exertion, and two persons are always necessary for its performance. A handfull of dry grass, or an old piece of cotton rag, is placed beneath the wood to catch the sparks, and glows as soon as the wood is converted into coal. Dried grass and sticks are now added, when the combustible materials are fanned into a living flame. In Kordofan the same custom prevails.

If all the fires be extinguished in a small village during the rainy season, the inhabitants are indeed put to the greatest embarrassment, especially where the distance to the nearest village is great, because all the grass and wood is then very wet. A Shilluk told me that in his village, which was situated at a distance of ten hours' march from any other inhabited spot, they were once not able to produce a fire during twenty days. The inhabitants had made frequent attempts to transport a burning branch from the nearest locality, and had lighted more than fifty fires in the intervening space, in order to bring it gradually into their own village ; but the showers had, on four different occasions, frustrated their endeavours when they were on the point of succeeding. Soft wood is useless for procuring a light, and there was no hard wood in that neighbourhood. I was myself once put to a very great inconvenience whilst at Lobeid for want of a flint, for there was