EGYPT, AND SYRIA. 293 
late king, contented himfelf with about five hundred females as 
a light travelling equipage in his wars in Kordofan, and left as 
many more in his palace. This may feem ridiculous, but when 
it is recollected that they had corn to grind, water to fetch, food 
to drefs, and all menial offices to perform for feveral hundred 
individuals, and that thefe females (excepting thofe who are re- 
puted Serrari^ concubines of the monarch) travel on foot, and 
even carry utenfils, &c. on their heads, employment for this 
immenfe retinue may be imagined, without attributing to the 
Sultan more libidinous propenfities than belong to others of the 
fame rank and ftation. 
This people exceeds in indulgences with women, and pays 
little regard to reftraint or decency. The form of the houfes 
already defcribed fecures no great fecrecy to what is carried on 
within them, yet even the concealment which is thus offered, is 
not always fought. The fhade of a tree, or long grafs, is the 
fble temple required for the facrifices to the primaeval deity. In 
the courfe of licentious indulgence father and daughter, fon and 
mother are fometimes mingled. The relations of brother and 
fifter are exchanged for clofer intercourfe ; and in the adjoining 
ftate, (Bergoo,) the example of the monarch countenances the 
infrad:ion of a pofitive precept, as well of Iflamifm, as of the 
other rules of faith, which have taken their tindure from the 
Mofaic difpenfation. 
But however unbridled their appetites in other refpeds may 
be, pasderafty, fo common in Afia and the North of Africa, is in 
Soudan little known or pradifed. The fituation, charader, and 
treatment 
