PRODUCTS. 225 wliether a species of com of the temperate zone miglit be cultivated with more profit or with the same facility as the dockn. It happens, however, in some years that the necessary quantity is not grown, and then whole villages are frequently necessitated to betake themselves to the woods, and live upon the egelit,* a fruit of the size of a plum, of a yellowish colour, and pulpy consistence, which has not an unpleasant flavour. Kordofan is altogether blest with many useful trees notwithstanding its poverty in other respects, and an addition might be made to their number with very little artificial aid, were the inhabitants not too lazy and too stolid to engage with energy in any undertaking, whilst the government, on the other hand, only directs its attention to those objects which return an immediate profit.

Among the most useful trees growing without cultivation, must be reckoned : the gum-tree, the tamarind, the beautiful tabaldi, and the egelit before mentioned. The gum-tree {mimosa Nilotica) as it is termed in books, merits a different denomination in Kordofan, for the shape of the tree, its leaves and spines, differ materially from those of the mimosa Nilotica, properly so called. The latter tree yields common guru only, whereas that of Kordofan is of the finest description, so that it is erroneously distinguished by the name of gum-Arabic.

* Heglig, of Browne ; Agihalid, of Adamson ; the Balanites Egyptiaca in the Description de I' Egypte, puhliee jmr Panckoucke.

Forskael mentions the fruit of the eglit, but not the tree. Tr. Q