262 CAPITAL OF KORDOFAN ; LOBEID.

really advisable to remain confined to the house until these torrents are lost in the sand, as is very soon the ease.

As soon as the harvest is concluded, and the stubble is quite dry, the natives proceed to bum the remaining herbage. This occupation offers a very singular spectacle. The grass is in part collected into heaps, and old and young congregate around them to witness the exhibition which ensues : the pile is ignited, and a dense smoke issues from it.

Disturbed by the fumes, and frightened by the noise of the multitude, thousands of locusts, which had Iain concealed in the grass, fly up, but are quickly seized upon by the bystanders, impaled and roasted, and offered for sale in the market-place, at the price of five for one para or hassasch ; they constitute a favourite dish with the natives, by whom they are greedily devoured. After this act of purification the place again presents itself to view in all its nakedness, and many other matters come to light, which had hitherto been hidden by the grass : bones of men and animals lie scattered about in all the roads, for no one thinks it worth his trouble to inter them. The cause of this barbarity will be readily understood when it is known that, as soon as a slave dies, a rope is bound round his foot, by which he is dragged out of the hut with as little ceremony as a dead beast, and scraped into the sand anywhere, or even left to decompose in the grass until the hyaenas come to gnaw his bones in the night ; the remains are de-