268 NORTH-EAST AFEICA. 



Africa. Its principal relations are not with Khartum, but with the villages 

 situated at the end of the great bend which the river describes above Dongola. 

 As the cataracts of the Nile greatly increase the cost of transport, it is in the 

 interest of the caravans coming from Egypt to follow the desert route south-east 

 towards Khartum and south towards El-Obcid. In both of these towns, articles of 

 European manufacture commanded the same market price before the rising of 

 Kordofan. The trade of El-Obeid was then very considerable, especially the sale 

 of slaves who, according to Munzinger, form three-fourths of the population of 

 Kordofan. Like the European cottons consigned to the western countries, nearly 

 all the ostrich feathers imported from For pass through El-Obeïd. The exporta- 

 tion of gums in 1880 was valued at 100,000 cwt., which is equivalent to a sum of 

 £80,000.* 



Should El-Obeid lose this trade, wherein lay its importance, what would become 

 of this capital of Kordofan, even were it to be chosen as the capital of a new 

 empire under any of the rival Mahdis ? However, ever since the destruction of 

 the Egyptian army the isolation of the town has not been so great as might be 

 supposed, and relations with Tripoli have been actively carried on through Wadaï 

 and Fezzan ; but the Europeans have not played their usual rôle as the inter- 

 mediaries in this revived commerce. 



El-Obcid does not offer the appearance of a compact city ; it is rather a collec- 

 tion of villages relieved here and there by brick buildings erected in the " Christian 

 style." Around the southern quarter, which is the town properly so-called, nearly 

 all the dwellings are mere tokuls, like those of the country hamlets — huts of earth, 

 which collapse under a heavy shower of rain, or else cabins of mats or branches, 

 surrounded by thorny hedges to prevent the camels from gnawing the cloths and 

 ropes which are placed on the houses. 



The populations of various origin are distributed throughout the different 

 quarters according to their ethnical affinities. Here are settled the Jalin or 

 Danagla merchants ; farther on reside the Nubas, the Takruri, the immigrants of 

 For and the Maugrabins, whilst before the war four or five hundred Greeks had 

 their shops in the centre of the southern quarter. A few gardens skirt the 

 kheran, or sandy river-beds, which intersect the town, and which are sometimes 

 flooded ; but nearly all the cabins are surrounded by fields of dokhn. 



During the dry seasons nothing but dusty spaces intervene between the huts, 

 and the town presents a dreary appearance ; but towards the end of the kharif, 

 when the vegetation is in its beauty, the outlying quarters of El-Obeid appear like 

 vast prairies, and the conic roofs of the tokuls are hardly visible above the floating 

 sea of red-eared dokhn. Before the war the population of El-Obeid, including the 

 suburban villages, was calculated at 80,000 persons. An Italian traveller even 

 ventures to raise the number to 100,000 ; but it is probable that the capital of 

 Kordofan has become almost abandoned since the first Mahdi ordered the people, 

 under pain of death, to quit their brick houses and dwell either in the tent or in 



♦ Trade of Kordofan, according to Front, in 1876: Imports, £r)0,000 ; Exports, £132,000. 

 Total, £182,000. 



