PRACTICAL LAWS. 49 



late years, and the priesthood and ' nobles ' who were 

 formerly exempted have now to pay their share. 



These ' nobles ' are found amongst all tribes, and they 

 claim descent from a few men who lived three or four 

 centuries ago, and they are recognised as such by their 

 people. They have their laws of primogeniture, the 

 eldest son inheriting his father's estate, and the youngest 

 having the house of his mother. After the death of the 

 father, the first-born son has to provide for the family, 

 to support his brothers until they are old enough to be 

 independent of him, and his sisters until they marry, 

 when he has to find dowries for them. So their laws, 

 if such be a fair example of the generality of them, have 

 a good deal of common sense to recommend them for 

 adoption otherwise than in Egypt. 



Munsinger Pasha has a great idea that the country 

 in the neighbourhood of the river Gash might be brought 

 under cultivation, and he has now engineers surveying 

 one portion, eighty miles by twenty in extent, with 

 regard to its capability of being inundated. If, as he 

 believes, this can be done, it will be covered in a short 

 time with crops of cotton and indigo, both of which are 

 found to thrive here, 2,000 acres having been already 

 tested with them most successfully, and specimens sent 

 only this autumn to Cairo. To-morrow he proposes to 

 take us for a ride round the town, and to show us the 

 prison. 



E 



