COMMERCE. 291 of export to the Shilluks and Yaenky, and are considered favourable objects for barter.

Sim-sini, whence an oil is expressed, is exported to Sennaar ; Cisme,* which grows in Kordofan, although that of a superior quality comes from Takele, is exported to Egypt and the Levant. The price is very low ; about twenty paras (two-pence) the rottolo, the same quantity is, however, paid in Cairo with four piasters (one shilling). It is used as a remedy in diseases of the eye, but great caution is necessary in purchasing this article ; and it should indeed be always subjected to close examination, for there are several varieties in commerce, the fine grained specimens being the best, and the coarse grained the inferior varieties.

Gold is a very important article of export, but not very profitable at present, since the price has risen considerably. I am told that the oock'ckah was sold at two hundred piasters before the Turks entered the country; whereas the same quantity now costs three hundred and seventy or four hundred piasters; at this price, from ten to fifteen per cent, may be realized ; the oock'ckah of Kordofan is rather heavier than that of Sennaar. Gold is met with in commerce, in rings var}'ing in size, and also in grains ; the latter variety is enclosed in the * Cisme, or shishme, a small grain of the size and shape of the smallest lentil of a deep black shining colour is imported from Darfour. It is pulverized and rubbed into the eyelids for complaints of the eye. Burckhardl's Travels in Nubia, p. 262. Th.

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