48 LIFE WITH THE HAMRAN ARABS. 



two high poles with a cross-bar, to which men are strung" 

 up by the thumbs as a punishment for any great crime, 

 and this exquisite torture is sometimes continued from 

 fifteen to twenty minutes. We were therefore not sur- 

 prised on hearing that this public spectacle acted as a 

 good warning to would-be offenders. It is difficult to 

 bring the laws of civilised nations to bear otherwise than 

 slowly upon the very mixed and half-savage tribes col- 

 lected here ; but though Egypt has only acquired this 

 territory since 1822, great improvements have been 

 introduced, and there is something like order established. 

 Statistics of life and death are quite impossible, for the 

 people are very tenacious about inquiries into family 

 life, fearing that it means the extortion of taxes. The 

 death-rate of the army quartered in Kassala, numbering 

 1, 800, averages sixty per annum, or 33*33 per 1,000, 

 intermittent fever and dysentery being the chief causes 

 of this high rate of mortality. As in Cairo, vaccination 

 is adopted, though not with the same success, owing to 

 the bad supply of vaccine ; but the people have great 

 faith in it, and, failing this protection, they adopt the 

 next best expedient in being inoculated from a small-pox 

 case. The laws of morality are not very strict, for young 

 girls can lead immoral lives without losing caste amongst 

 their sex. 



The system of taxation has been much altered of 



