Opening the text

Travels in Kordofan : $b Embracing a description of that province of Egypt, and of some of the bordering countries, with a review of the present state of the commerce in those countries, of the habits and customs of the inhabitants, as also an account of the slave hunts taking place under the government of Mehemed AliPallme, Ignaz

History

Travels in Kordofan : $b Embracing a description of that province of Egypt, and of some of the bordering countries, with a review of the present state of the commerce in those countries, of the habits and customs of the inhabitants, as also an account of the slave hunts taking place under the government of Mehemed Ali

Name: Travels in Kordofan : $b Embracing a description of that province of Egypt, and of some of the bordering countries, with a review of the present state of the commerce in those countries, of the habits and customs of the inhabitants, as also an account of the slave hunts taking place under the government of Mehemed Ali
Author: Pallme, Ignaz

Pallme, Ignaz

Kordofan (Sudan : Province) -- Description and travel; Nile River; Sudan -- Description and travel

Opposite the government buildings the gallows is erected. This engine
of civilization is composed of two posts driven vertically into the
ground, and surmounted by a cross-beam, to which the victims of a
rigid penal law are suspended, without further ceremony. Not far
from the fatal scaffold is an elevation, or clay mound, furnished
with a few steps, where the priest reads a prayer on high-feasts, the
service being only attended by the male population of the town. The
Soock, or proper market-place, is contiguous to this mound. It
would be an egregious fallacy to imagine that order reigned here
predominant, as in other towns in the equally uncivilized East;
for not only are all objects intended for sale jumbled pell-mell
together, and exposed without consideration to the inclemencies
of the weather, and other destructive influence, but it costs,
moreover, indescribable trouble to obtain even such articles as
you may be willing to purchase. Close to this market-place on
the right, stands the only coffee-house in the whole province
of Kordofan. In the year 1838 it was closed, and no tenant was
to be found for a considerable time on account of the high rent
demanded by the government; the price of coffee had also risen at
this period to eighteen piasters (five shillings and threepence)
the rottolo (about three quarters of a pound), as none had arrived
from Abyssinia. In the year 1839 the establishment was again opened
by the new governor Yussuff-Bey, in consideration of this beverage
being so indispensable to the Turkish officers.

Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.