298 Seven Years in the Soudan.

Millet is the only grain which thrives in the district, yielding a copious harvest. The soil of southern Darfour is sandy, and the want of water a real scourge.

The proprietors of the settlements named above, as I think I have already said, send all their cattle during the dry season to the Bahr-el-Arab and the vicinity of Yangeli. They only keep a few milch cows for domestic use, which, like the inhabitants, quench their thirst with the water melons which are cultivated on a large scale. In this sandy region the melon plants derive the necessary hinnidity from the air and the subsoil.

All the cooking is also done with the juice of these providential melons. In one word they replace the missing water.

The population, as can be imagined, never wash. AVhen they have once ])ut on their dress, consisting of a long shirt, it remains till it falls in rags.

The peasants let their hair grow, dressing it in many small braids, while the people of the large villages shave their heads completely, and always go bare-headed, in spite of the blazing sunshine.

Greedy of others' goods, mendacious and brutal to ferocity, they are consummate hy})ocrites. This is the most striking quality of the race.

The women take the ])lace of the men in everything. They Avatch the cattle, milk the coavs, superintend the cultivation of the fields, make the butter, look after the kitchen, and carry the merchandise to market.

The men occupy themselves solely with their lances and horses, making raids into the bordering country of Yangeh to capture slaves. The only thing in which they are better than the other slave drivers is, that they do not sell their captives, but keep them for their own use.

Their current money consists of pieces of cloth about eight yards long — two pieces are worth a