FRUITS AND VEGETABLES OF KHARTOOM. 403 
greenish colour. Six miles up stream it narrows be- 
tween steep banks to one hundred and fifty yards. 
The town being on the brink of the river, and every 
year its houses getting cut away by the falling in of 
the bank, there is no room for walking along — no quay, 
as it were, for the exports and imports. You are ob- 
liged for half a mile to brush past the walls of houses, 
the wells, goods, and animals — a most uncomfortable 
state of things. During our stay at Khartoom the 
sun was very powerful, and we had but one shower in 
a fortnight. Bathing in the Blue Nile was much re- 
sorted to by men and women, who appeared to enjoy 
it thoroughly ; but I only attempted it once, because 
the river was so low that I had to walk thirty yards 
before getting into water deep enough to enable me 
to swim. Fish were generally to be had in the town. 
They are caught in various ways ; some by nets nearly 
fifty yards long, with large meshes and short floats of 
wood. Irrigation from the Blue Nile is effected by 
cutting narrow channels in the bank ; or the Persian 
wheel, with its hanging earthen jars, overhangs the 
river, and so raises the water to the height of the 
fields and gardens. Fruits and vegetables thrive at 
Khartoom. The former include a small variety of grape, 
oranges, limes, custard apples, pomegranate, plantain, 
dates, and figs ; the vegetables are beans and pease, 
onions most luxuriant, lupin, nole kole, bamea, lettuce, 
&c. The tobacco grown was different to what we had 
met with in the interior ; here it was the low bushy 
description called Nicotiana rustica L., that of the in- 
terior being N. tabacum L., which grows with a longer 
leaf. Senna is one of the herbs cultivated, also safflower, 
already mentioned. The harvest of bearded wheat 
