234 
TRAVELS IN AFRICA, 
CHAP. XVII. 
DAR-FUR. 
topography of Fiir^ with fome account of its various inhabitants. 
The town called Cobbe, as being the principal refidence of 
the merchants, and placed alraoft in the diredt road from the 
North to the South extremity of the country, fliall, for the fake 
of perfpicuity, though not centrally fituated, be confidered as the 
capital of Dar-Fur. 
I found it to be in lat. 14° 11' long. E. G. 28° 8'. This 
town is more than two miles in length, but very narrow, and 
the houfes, each of which occupies within its inclofure a large 
portion of ground, are divided by confiderable wafte. The 
principal, or poffibly the only view of convenience by which 
the natives appear to have been governed in their choice of 
fituation and mode of building, muft have been that of having 
the refidence near the fpot rented or inherited by them for the 
purpofe of cultivation. The town is full of trees of feveral 
kinds, among which are the palm, deleib^ &c. but chiefly the 
heglig and the nebbek^ which give it an agreeable appearance at 
a fmall diftance, for being fituated in a plain, it is not diftindly 
vifible more than four or five miles in any diredion. 
During 
