THE CULTIVATION OF COTTON. 
391 
vable where the sand has not perfectly covered them. 
The consequence is, that wood gave way to sand ; and 
the voyager has to lay in his last stock of logs from 
the woods above El Eis. Below this all firewood must 
be purchased, or stolen from the walls and fences on 
the banks of the river. 
We were all much struck with the industry of the 
natives, who are called " Hassanyeh Arabs/' and are 
fine powerful - looking men. Though differing from 
the Bagara who live higher up the river, and not having 
so many horses, they arm themselves with the same 
broad-bladed spear, and have few guns amongst them. 
The chief dwellings and cultivated grounds are at 
some distance from the river ; they reside there dur- 
ing the rainy season, and migrate with their flocks to 
the edges of the Nile for the dry season. Temporary 
abodes are erected, and they trade in salt made from 
the subsoil of the river. In March we observed bare- 
headed, good-looking men, with a sheet covering their 
shoulders and with loose "pyjamas," pulling the rip- 
ened pods of the cotton. Towards the equator women 
would have been employed in this occupation, but 
here, with a Mohammedan population, they are kept 
indoors cleaning the cotton, making butter, or out 
drawing water from the well. The cotton bushes are 
eighteen inches high, planted in lines a yard apart — 
very luxuriant, in consequence of the rich clay soil 
being shaded by drifted sand from the rays of the sun. 
By this provision of nature the soil does not cake, and 
the roots are kept cool, and free to send out their 
branches. The islands vary in length from three 
hundred yards to that of Marda, which is estimated 
at five miles. All are strips cleared of their natural 
