The goat is very common in the country, and may be reckoned among the chief domestic animals. There are several varieties, or rather cross breeds, and some of exceedingly elegant form; but they are mostly very small. Nothing can induce the Turks to partake of goat’s-milk during the rainy season; for they firmly believe that it produces fever, if the animal should happen to have browsed the leaves of a tree called, in Arabic, _escher_ (_asclepias procera_), and known as a poisonous plant. It is, in fact, the tree whence the well-known poison is expressed, with which an obnoxious person was quietly put out of the way with a fingán of coffee in former times in Egypt, and is sometimes employed for the same purpose at the present day. This plant may be met with occasionally as a shrub in Upper Egypt; but in Kordofan it attains the height of a tree. Many of the natives pay great attention to its cultivation, and lay the leaves into the sieve, through which they filter their merissa. These leaves contain a white milky juice, which is imparted to the beer and said to render it very narcotic. I have often warned these good people against its use; but they excuse themselves, by saying that their fathers, and mothers made use of it before them. The camel, not very particular in the selection of its food in general, never touches the escher.[64] As regards the superstition prevalent among the Turks, that the milk of the goats generates fever, in consequence of their having fed off the foliage of this poisonous plant, it is perfectly absurd; for it is a well-known fact, that any kind of milk taken during the rainy season will produce fever. Dogs, of which there are a great number, run about, as in all other mahommedan countries, without any real owners, and are yet looked upon as domestic animals. They are mostly of a yellow colour, but rather better shaped than the Egyptian dogs; like them they feed off the garbage and fallen cattle, and are not otherwise of the slightest utility. I found, however, that they might be instructed for sporting, with very little trouble. There are very few cats in the country, hence the rats and the mice are so tame that they will run across the feet of a person by day-time. If anything be thrown to them for food, they immediately pick it up, devour it quickly, and return fearlessly to fetch more. The natives of Kordofan take little pains to destroy this vermin, and merely set snares in the fields and gardens for the field rat, which is eaten by many negroes, and even by some few of the Dongolavi. I myself saw the Nuba negroes eating rats; they roast them in their skins, and flay them after they are cooked. There is one species of rat, however, which does not create the slightest disgust. It is of a cream-colour, with a snow white belly and feet tipped with white, and its coat is as sleek as silk. They may be classed amongst the most elegant animals.