Very unwisely, not one of the Seriba governors has ever made an attempt to introduce into the district the culture of rice, for which the low marshy fields, otherwise useless, seem, very admirably adapted; but the people are not to be taught; vain the endeavour to initiate them even into a rational system of burning charcoal; and as to the culture of rice, nothing throughout the whole of Nubia was known about it. On the contrary, the expeditions which have set out from Zanzibar, and which have explored districts where the climate is not dissimilar to that of which we speak, have introduced the cultivation of rice over a very considerable area. The finger of nature itself seems to point out the propriety of not neglecting this product; in the whole district south of the Gazelle the wild rice of Senegal grows quite freely, and this I always found of a better quality than the best kinds of Damietta. During the rains the wild rice (_Oryza punctata_) environs many a pool with its garland of reddish ears, and seems to thrive exceedingly, but it never occurs to the sluggish natives to gather the produce that is lost in the water; and it is only because the Baggara and some of the inhabitants of Darfoor had saved some quantity, that I contrived to get my small supply. There yet remain three kinds of corn to which a passing reference should be made in order to complete a general survey of the agriculture of this district. Next to the sorghum stands the penicillaria, or Arabian “dokhn,” to which much attention is devoted, and which is cultivated here much more freely than in the northern Soudan. Sown somewhat later than the sorghum, somewhat later it comes to maturity. A second substitute on the land for sorghum is a meagre grain, the _Eleusine coracana_. By the Arabians it is called telaboon, and by the Abyssinians tocusso; it is only grown on the poorest soils and where the ground is too wet to admit of any better crop. The grain of this is very small and generally black, and is protected by a hard thick skin; it has a disagreeable taste, and makes only a wretched sort of pap. It yields a yeast that is more fit for brewing than for baking; in fact, not only do the Niam-niam, who are the principal growers of the Eleusine, but the Abyssinians as well, make a regular beer by means of it. Midway between the sorghum and the penicillaria must be reckoned the maize of the country, which only grows in moderate quantity, and is here generally cultivated as a garden vegetable in the immediate proximity of the huts. The Madi tribe of the Mittoo are the only people who seem to cultivate it to any great extent. [Sidenote: AFRICAN WHEATS.]