of the night is occasionally interrupted by the howl of a hyaena, or the yelling of the timid dogs. This mode of life is repeated daily, and but rarely undergoes even the slightest variation. CHAPTER XV. COMMERCE. The monopoly enjoyed by the Egyptian government in this province totally impedes trade in general. The chief articles of commerce are not only all bought by the authorities, who are, moreover, protected by a law prohibiting any private person from bringing them into the market; but the immense duties levied on the goods render it impossible to transport them to Egypt; this rule especially applies to ivory. Every one is, therefore, forced to sell to the government,—the most arbitrary species of monopoly, or rather worse, inasmuch as the individual suffers an outlay in capital, freight, and duty. The country might produce indigo, opium, sugar, and many other articles, which would yield an immense profit, both to private persons and to the administration, for the soil requires but little cultivation, and brings forth every plant in great luxuriance; but the onus placed upon the province by the despotic government discourages the individual from attempting more than trusting entirely to nature. The whole population live in fear, and are not one day sure of their property; thus every one looks only to the moment, and troubles himself very little about his successor. All the produce met with in commerce is in its natural state, and few manufactured goods are ever seen beyond some solitary cottons, and objects in leather. The articles of export are: gum, hides, senna-leaves, ivory, rhinoceros’-horns, cattle, tamarinds, ostrich-feathers, ostrich-eggs, gold in rings and in grain, water-bags, salt, tobacco, sim-sim, cisme, and slaves. The first three articles named are the most lucrative in a commercial point of view, and monopolized, of course, by the government. The gum Arabic is collected in the forests a few months after the expiration of the rainy season, and we may say by force; for the government pays the cantaro of forty-four oock’ckahs, equivalent to one hundred and ten pounds, with fifteen piasters (four shillings and fourpence) only. They might greatly increase their profits if they were to remunerate the labour better, and to pay more attention to this branch of trade, although it must be allowed to a certain extent to rest under the influence of the weather, for if much rain fall, the trees are the more prolific; but the collection itself is performed with the utmost carelessness, as the people employed are driven to this work by force, and receive but small wages. Add to this, that whole forests are being annually hewn down, and converted into arable land, whilst no one dreams of replanting trees, a provision considered a work of supererogation, and left entirely to nature.