PRODUCTS. 219 granates, lemon trees, Indian and common figs. In the larger i)lantations sim-sim, ful-Darfur (beans from Darfour), rice, and cotton are grown. It is, however, by mere chance if garden fruits, or green vegetables, are ever seen exposed for sale in the market place at Lobeid ; weeks frequently pass without any such luxuries coming to sight, for the gardeners are very far backward in their art, and take but little pains to produce any plants. The natives, in fact, leave the cultivation of the gardens, like everything else, to chance, and do not give the vegetation the slightest assistance, so that it is really by mere hazard if anything thrive. Should the traveller wish to obtain vegetables for his own consumption during his residence in this country, he must make a kind of agreement with the proprietor of a garden to deliver the produce of the season at his house ; for to wait for what might be exhibited in the market, would be, indeed, to wait in vain, as such an exhibition is, in the first place, according to my former statement, of very rare occurrence, and vegetables are only offered publicly for sale when all the private consumers are supj)lied, and there is a surplus of one or the other production. The vegetables indigenous in temperate climates are not of the same succulent quality in this country, partly because they are not properly attended to, and partly because the tropical climate causes them to grow too luxuriantly to arrive at the same state of i)erfection in which we obtain them in Europe. Grapes ripen twice