ity which always
accompanies these deluges adds still more to the general alarm. However,
after about two days the whole town becomes dry again; the hot sun and
thirsty earth soon absorb all the moisture, and one would scarcely know
that rain had fallen.

Generally about a month before the rains begin, and when the Khalifa
permits it, the people leave the town in crowds and repair to the
fields, which they set to work to clear. After the famine year of 1889
the Khalifa did everything in his power to induce the people to turn
their attention to agriculture. Plentiful rain and hard work produced
excellent crops in 1890. Dhurra, dukhn, cotton, sesame, onions, and
various sorts of beans are grown.

The operation of sowing requires little time or trouble; the fields are
cleared of all the stumps, roots, &c., of the preceding harvest, which
are burnt, then every one raises a small bank of earth around his
ground, so as to retain the water and enable the earth to become
thoroughly saturated. This measure is specially necessary in the
Gezireh, where the clay soil does not absorb quickly, whilst in the
sandy plains of Kordofan it is exactly the reverse.

As soon as the parched ground has absorbed the first rains, sowing is
begun without delay; the soil is turned over with iron or wooden hoes,
and the seed thrown down. Weeds spring up in great profusion, and it
requires endless trouble to prevent their choking the young growth.
Dhurra ripens in about two months, dukhn in three. The fine quality,
such as Shilluk dhurra, takes six months to come to maturity. The
gathered corn is threshed, and then stored in holes in the ground, where
it can be kept without deteriorating for upwards of ten years.

Along the Nile, sowing and reaping goes on the whole year through. Water
is drawn up by the sakiehs, or water-wheels, and distributed over the
fields. After the wars, numbers of these water-wheels which had been
destroyed, were reconstructed. Now there are a great number in working
order, and the banks are covered with green. All work is done with the
iron or wooden hoe, and the plough is not used at all. The only plough I
ever saw in the Sudan was one worked by an Egyptian in Khartum, and it
caused no small astonishment amongst the natives. Wheat and maize--or,
as it is called in the Sudan, "Aish er rif" (Egyptian bread)--ripens in
forty days.

In Kordofan quantities of broad beans are grown, as well as sesame,
sugar-cane, cotton, o