Most places are provided with draw-wells, but the water is on the average very bad. The wells are situated at a short distance from some of their places of residence, and the tributary springs frequently dry up, as was the case in the year 1839, when many villages suffered from want of water. In several localities, where this element was formerly found at a depth of ten feet, it is now necessary to dig to a depth of twenty feet before it can be reached. About fifteen years ago water was found at twenty feet below the level of the ground at Lobeid; at present fifty feet must be penetrated before arriving at it. During the rainy season water is, indeed, never wanting; but the rains do not last long, and that which remains in the ponds either quickly evaporates, or becomes in a short time so deteriorated that it could not be drank without producing fatal consequences. The arrangements in the interior of the tukkoli are as simple as the huts themselves. In addition to an “angareb” (a bedstead or frame, with straps fastened across it), a leathern shield, and a few spears, the furniture consists of the following objects:—a pot, called “burma,” for water; a second for boiling, and a third for “merissa” (a species of beer); further a flat earthern dish “doka” for baking bread; some few gourds for drinking; a wooden platter named “gedda” for the boiled food; and a dish of straw plaited from the leaves of the Doum palm, called “tabake.” Milk is kept in a basket formed of rushes so densely interlaced that no fluid can percolate: to render them thus impermeable they are steeped in boiling water immediately after they are plaited. Provisions and other articles of domestic economy are hung against the walls, to keep them from the mice and white ants; these insects are a thorough plague in the country, and nothing is safe from them; they will even gnaw and undermine the wood-work of a house, and cause the whole fabric to fall to pieces. Their habitation is the sand, especially where it is rather damp; everything in fact that is placed on the ground is in danger of being eaten up by them; chests and trunks should, therefore, be placed upon stones, for they do not creep up these: the open air is also fatal to the white ant. When they have gnawed anything to pieces they leave a moisture mixed with sand, which becoming hard forms an incrustation; and beneath this they carry on their work of destruction. This covering is not intended to defend them from other insects inimical to them, and likely to disturb them in their work, but to guard themselves against the access of the air, which, as I before mentioned, they cannot bear. I took all possible pains to learn something more of the habits of these animals, to find out where they live and in what numbers they congregate. I have often dug to a depth of one foot or two feet in the sand without meeting with one single ant; and yet, if I placed a wooden chest on the ground, where I had