We may now easily imagine what fate befel this ill-starred country, when it became subject to the Turks. In former days, the inhabitants lived in freedom, without care, in the consciousness of security of property, or at least of life; but, when the Turks gained possession of this province, a total change took place; from that moment, the right of property ceased to exist, and the government considered all possessions as its own. Add to this the inhuman conduct of the Defturdar, which brought the people to the verge of despair; for the slightest suspicion that any one subject had amassed a small fortune, either in goods, money, or cattle, was sufficient to bring him, under some pretext, to death, in order to be able to confiscate his property. The Defturdar was insatiable; he robbed everything, if he only knew where to find it, and had thus collected immeasurable wealth in a very short space of time. The government is, indeed, at present, rather more lenient, and its officers have received a check in their arbitrary abuse of power; but the distance from the seat of government is too great to render the superior authorities cognizant of all abuses, too many of which, unfortunately, yet afflict this doomed province. CHAPTER III. GOVERNMENT. The form of government of Kordofan resembles that of other countries under Egyptian sway, that is to say, it is despotic; but the inhabitants of this province are subjected to particularly severe oppression, being situate, as we have above observed, at so great a distance from the seat of government, that it indeed almost amounts to an impossibility to proffer a complaint to the first authorities. The people feel themselves, therefore, extremely miserable, the more so since, under the dominion of Sennaar and Darfour, neither property nor life were endangered, as they are at present. The difference may be deduced from the fact, that, in former times, nearly all the women wore ornaments of gold, a metal which is now rarely, or never seen in the province.