COMMERCE. 295 Senna-leaves are found in many parts of Kordofan in abundance, but the government makes no use of them, and othei*s are prevented from turning them to advantage by the existing monopoly.

They are equal in quality to those of Dongola, which the administration thence imports and sells under the denomination of Alexandrian or Egyptian Senna. Not the fiftieth part of these leaves, however, are natives of Eg}q)t, for they are first met with at Assuan, and are erroneously called Egyptian leaves ; their true native country is the province of Dongola. The government draws its entire supply from that province. The inhabitants of the deserts in those parts collect them, and receive frqm two hundred to four hundred piasters, according to the state of the market, for the camelload of three cantari, at forty-four oock'ckahs, delivered in New Dongola. As the government would have to pay an addition of sixty to eighty piasters on the freight of each camel-load they might draw from Kordofan, they naturally do not obtain any leaves from that province, and they are left to rot unused.

These are then the chief articles produced in the country, or received transito from the bordering states.

The importation of articles for home consumption, or for trade with other countries, is effected by caravans, the majority of which arrive from Cairo, a far less number comes from Sennaar, and yet less from Suakim ; they return laden with a few inconyidorablo