CAPITAL OF KORDOFAN ; LOBEID. 267 forcement could be despatched from the Nuba mountains, the enemy might plunder and sack ever}thing without meeting with the slightest resistance.

Opposite the government buildings the gallows is erected. This engine of civilization is composed of two posts driven vertically into the ground, and surmounted by a cross-beam, to which the victims of a rigid penal law are suspended, without further ceremony. Not far from the fatal scaffold is an elevation, or clay mound, furnished with a few steps, where the priest reads a prayer on high-feasts, the service being only attended by the male population of the town. The Soock, or proper market-place, is contiguous to this mound.

It would be an egregious fallacy to imagine that order reigned here predominant, as in other towns in the equally uncivilized East ; for not only are all objects intended for sale jumbled pell-mell together, and exposed without consideration to the inclemencies of the weather, and other destructive influence, but it costs, moreover, indescribable trouble to obtain even such articles as you may be willing to purchase. Close to this market-place on the right, stands the only coffee-house in the whole province of Kordofan. In the year 1838 it was closed, and no tenant was to be found for a considerable time on account of the high rent demanded by the government ; the price of coffee had also risen at this i>eriod to eighteen piasters (five shillings