The military force stationed in Kordofan consists of three battalions of the first regiment of the line, each battalion being composed of 1000 men, further of 800 Bedouin horsemen, called also Mogghrebeen, and of about 40 artillery men to serve the few guns employed in the slave-hunting expeditions; to this number about 200 men of the irregular Turkish cavalry were added, in the commencement of the year 1839. The latter troops were removed from Dongola to Kordofan, but for an indefinite time only; they were, indeed, expecting orders shortly to return to their former quarters. The staff is stationed at Lobeid, and the colonel of the regiment (the Bey) whom we have before mentioned, is both civil and military governor of the province. Two companies of the same regiment are quartered in Sennaar. This regiment was originally the first which Mehemed Ali formed of Negroes at Assuan in Egypt, and placed on European footing; hundreds of Egyptians have, at various times, been drafted into this corps, but they mostly fell victims to the climate, or perished after a few years’ service in the razzias or slave-hunts. The entire garrison consists of blacks: it is, in fact, indispensably necessary that it should be so; for the white men cannot accommodate themselves to the climate. Among all Mehemed Ali’s troops, numbers of which I have seen in various parts of his dominions, I never met with a regiment so wretchedly equipped, so badly drilled, and so utterly deficient in discipline as the one in question. The soldiers wear only a white cotton uniform, and it would be injudicious indeed to clad them in cloth in this hot climate; but when we come to consider that the negroes, by nature not over addicted to cleanliness, do not trouble themselves with washing, and are not even provided for this purpose with soap, an expense they feel no inclination to defray from their own purses, and add to this that they are in the habit of anointing their bodies frequently with butter as a means for preserving their health, a pretty correct idea of a trooper of Kordofan may be formed. On meeting one of these foot-soldiers without his accoutrements a stranger is really at a loss how to classify him, and before he has thoroughly accustomed himself to the sight he would rather take him for a scarecrow than a soldier.[52] The accoutrements, like the regimentals, are not in the very best state; while the drill sergeants are as ignorant as the recruits, and quite inadequate to their task, with the exception that the latter have no conception of fire-arms; thus muskets may be seen on which Time has set his tooth in the literal sense, so weak in the barrel, not with over cleaning, but with over rust, that they would never stand a charge. Instead of a flint a piece of wood is frequently screwed into the lock, the soldier finding it far more judicious to sell the former to enable him to buy a little tobacco. To prevent desertion as far as it is possible,