ITALIAN EXPEDITION IN THE SOUDAN. 371 
their ancestors. Every effort will be made to find some traces, if any yet re- 
main, of the tribes that preceded the Astecs—that is to say, the Otomes—the 
Chechimecs, and the Olmecs and even a people yet more ancient, of whom sufh- 
cient vestiges have been discovered to establish the truth of their existence. Don 
Manuel Orozco believes that the inhabitants of Mexico comprehend about 120 
tribes, and this number must have been more considerable in primitive times. 
Following the same authority, more than sixty idioms have perished within the 
limits of the Mexican Republic, and according to Frederic von Hellwaldit is very 
improbable that the inhabitants of the country, in the most remote period, formed 
a homogeneous population. Of some of the most ancient inhabitants, to whom is 
attached considerable ethnographic importance, we possess only the names and 
some traditions of little dependence. Among these iribes are the Olmecs, who, 
according to the legend, subdued the gigantic race of Quinames and of the 
Otomes, or Hia Hia, the language of whom has been perpetuated over a large 
part of Mexico until the present day. The expedition will make every research 
that can conduce to the object to be attained. It will excavate the tombs and the 
sacred marshes in which, it is supposed, the faithful have cast their offerings. 
UA de 
ITALIAN EXPEDITION IN THE SOUDAN. 
Further letters from Dr. Matteucci give some interesting details of the ob_ 
servations made by him in Kerdofan during the march of the expedition under 
Prince Borghese. In Kordofan, he says, water is as dear as the wine of Barletta. 
In the rainy season, however, things are different; from June to September al- 
most every inch of the country is covered with water, when if one may not die of 
thirst, there is a chance of his dying of malaria. Vegetation along the line of 
march of the expedition was as melancholy and infertile as it could well be; 
stunted skeleton acacias alternating with a few euphorbias in constant monotony ; 
neither mountains nor hills, and not even plains. In Kordofan the ground pre- 
sents continuous undulations, no doubt in consequence of the geological forma- 
tion of the soil, which is a bottom of sand slightly mixed with peroxide of iron. 
The water of the rainy season is husbanded in welis, but so valuable is it that 
the expedition had often to force the natives to give them access to these wells. 
At one station they found forty wells dug and others in process of being 
made. When the expedition arrived they found that the Arabs had closed up 
these wells by means of thorny branches, and had they not used force the whole 
expedition would have died of thirst. 
- Kordofan is about 600 meters above the level of the sea, and 380 above 
that of the Nile. Not a river, not a torrent, not a brook waters this immense 
territory, which is about 500 miles long and a little less broad. The mean tem- 
perature is not less than 92° At the surface the ground is so sandy that animals 
on the march sink io a depth of thirty centimeters. The rains are irregular and 
