2o8 SERVICE AND SPORT IN THE SUDAN 



unmarried of both sexes live in big sheds together. A 

 girl is not considered to have lost her virginity, and 

 fetches as good a price, even though she has added to 

 the population before a recognised marriage. 



I left Dem Zubeir just as the rains started. My 

 first objective was the Kuru River, where I had had 

 a lot of bricks burned, wherewith to make a bridge, 

 in the hopes of finding stone to make lime with. I 

 should add that I did not find any. I had also to 

 report on the clearing of the road. Wahbi Eff. had 

 seen to this, and made it wonderfully straight. To 

 force the natives to use it he had felled trees on the 

 old path. Now the track swung zigzag along the new 

 clearing. My third job was to clear and cover another 

 well at Dem Idris. Thence I intended to go to Kos- 

 singa via Telgona, to the Bahr el Arab, through the 

 Mandalla country, and to Kafiakingi, where the native 

 officer I had sent there with twenty men reported a 

 certain amount of unrest ; and so back to Dem Zubeir. 

 Shortly after starting we passed a number of giraffe 

 and hartebeest, from the latter of which I took toll. At 

 some of the rest-houses I suffered from the ravages of 

 the white ants. In a night they ate a corner of my 

 mosquito curtain that touched the ground, and pared 

 quite an appreciable amount off my boots at the same 

 time. 



At Khor Affifi I asked the custodian of the rest- 

 house (1 had planted the nucleus of a village at each 

 of them) why he had no zeriba round his own huts. 

 He replied that he had been too busy clearing the 

 forest for his cultivation. A few days later I passed 



