260 CAPITAL OF KORDOFAN ; LOBEID.

pearance of the town during the dry season, when the detached houses present themselves with all their defects and meanness, and the scanty trees and gardens offer no diversification of scenery ; for the former then stand as bald as brooms, and the latter are not even thought of. The burning sand, moreover, serves to remind the traveller that he is in a desert, and there is not the slightest object to be seen that might delight his eye.

How marked is the contrast in the rainy season !

It is difficult to persuade yourself that it is the same place you have shortly before seen standing in barren nakedness. All those spots, where nothing but sand was to be observed before, are now clad with a most luxuriant verdure, interspersed with the most beautiful flowers. The hedges round the houses are interlaced with a variety of creepers and twining plants, whose variegated flowers afford a most pleasing sj)ectacle. The environs of the houses are cultivated with dockn, which stands so high that the tops of the roofs are only to be seen projecting beyond it ; not a single house can be descried at a distance, and the whole country appears like one large forest. The entire town then resembles a park intersected by mazes, rendering it difficult for a stranger to extricate himself, or to find out a particular house. His embarrassment is greatly augmented by the circumstance of there being several thousands of small straw huts, and by the close resem-