192 DISEASES.

CHAPTER XI.

DISEASES.

In all my travels I never met with any country where the climate is so unhealthy, and where there is such a variety of disease as in Kordofan. Every one in the province, natives and strangers, more or less succumb to this scourge, but the Europeans are the first who fall victims. Two thirds of the white men who visit these regions may be with certainty regarded as sacrificed. The Turks and Egyptians ordered there in Mehemed All's service, dwindle down perceptibly, and must be continually replaced by fresh supplies. Of the sixteen European medical men and apothecaries employed in Kordofan, within the space of seventeen years seven have died, and of eight Englishmen sent into this province to work iron mines, six perished in less than two months, and the remaining two only escaped with their lives by making a rapid flight from this unhealthy district. Captain Woodfall, an Englishman, who visited this country in the year 1831, fell a victim to the climate.

All diseases show themselves with redoubled vigour during the rainy season ; no house, no hovel