HABITS AND CUSTOMS. 79 when this liquor has sufficiently fermented,—a process requiring two days,—it is filtered through a sieve formed of rushes. This merissa must be drunk immediately, for with the third day it begins to turn acid, a result which is not to be wondered at considering the intense heat of the climate, for they have no cellars in which they could preserve it for any length of time. The same merissa repeatedly filtered until it has become clearer is called bill-bill \ but bill-bill prepared with sugar, nutmeg, cloves, and other optional drugs forms sansugot. The latter beverage is made in various ways. It is an agreeable drink and very cooling. As a rule it is far more conducive to health to drink a larger quantity of merissa than of Mter in this climate, and I advise travellers in particular to observe this prescription, the more so as I found by experience that, as soon as I discontinued water, and commenced drinking merissa and brandy, the fever and dysentery, of which I could not get rid before, left me. I have also known natives, who, confining themselves to merissa, never drank one drop of water throughout the year, and these men were, without exception, the healthiest ; whereas the -wter-drinkers were always attacked with fever during the rainy season.

In those districts, where the inhabitants occupy themselves with agriculture, as at the foot of JSIount Kordofan, merissa flows in great abundance, and the greater part of the men are, consequently, in a state of intoxication all the year round, for they never take