268. CAPITAL OF kordofan; lobeid.

CHAPTER XIV.

THE CAPITAL OF KORDOFAN, LOBEID.

Lobeid, or Labayet, as it is also termed, is a town composed of several villages, from one of which it neither differs in its external appearance nor internal arrangements, excepting, perhaps, in being of greater extent. The houses, like those of the villages, are mere huts of straw, some few of them are, indeed, built of clay, but not one single house is of stone. The former town of the same name was totally destroyed by the Turks when they took possession of Kordofan, and the six villages, of which the capital of this province now consists, were subsequently built on the same site. Although these villages are not separated from each other by the intervention of a large space, yet each of them forms a separate quarter, and is inhabited by a distinct class of men. Wady Naghele, the first of these, is entirely inhabited by the Dongolavi and foreign merchants ; El-Orta, the camp, also named the town of the Turks, is the quarter in which the government buildings are situated, consisting of two