The habits of the people are very simple, and their labour is restricted to the most necessary employments. As soon as the day begins to dawn old and young rise from their couches, and after washing their faces, hands, and feet, in accordance with their religion, proceed to work; the occupation of the majority, however, consists in again retiring to the angareb. It is worthy of remark that no one sleeps on the bare ground, and that the meanest slave is provided with a mat to lie upon. In the houses of the more respectable natives, one or two angarebs are always found on which they sleep, while the lower orders are provided with straw-mats, for no human being could endure lying on the mere ground for any length of time; for the vermin harbouring in the sand would nearly eat him up. The bed of a slave is certainly not of eiderdown, and many Europeans, rising in the morning from a couch of this description, would consider they had undergone a severe punishment; for these straw, or rather cane-mats, are plaited from a species of reed, the stalks of which are as thick as the little finger, and each particular reed is so far apart in the texture, that their entire number may be counted in the morning on the body of the slave. I have often asked these poor wretches how they could possibly sleep on a bed of torture of this kind, but they have always assured me, laughing, that they could rest better there than on the bare ground. As a general rule no one places any pillow under his head, not even as much as a stone; but the natives cover themselves with a shirt, if indeed they have one; in this garment they envelope the whole head, and if any one, in fact, neglect covering his head at night, he will experience a sensation of heaviness and indisposition in the morning, which will continue during the whole day. Breakfast is not customary in this country. Although the coffee from Abyssinia, and even from Yemen, which stands in commercial connexion with Kordofan, is very cheap, this beverage is but little known and is only drank by some few djelabi and the Turkish residents of Kordofan; with the exception of one coffee-house at Lobeid, there is no establishment of the kind in the whole province, and this single _café_ is frequented by the Turks solely, and not by the natives. Among the most respectable Dongolavi, however, some few may be occasionally found who do not abstain altogether from this beverage. If a foreigner visit an influential person in the morning a pipe and merissa are offered him, and a dish, reckoned a great delicacy, which requires, however, a stomach differently constituted to that of an European to digest it. I, on one occasion, had the honour of being treated with this dish. I was one day invited by a djelabi at Denaglé to breakfast. Having arrived at the appointed time, I was conducted to a seat on an angareb covered with beautiful carpets, and a pipe and merissa were handed to me. When I observed that no fire was