Merchandize and goods entrusted to them are well taken care of, for their sheikh, with whom an agreement touching the delivery of the goods is made, is answerable for their safe arrival. Anything that may be stolen by his people, or destroyed through their neglect, he is forced to make good; he consequently only receives one half of the stipulated payment in advance. On my journey to Kordofan I met with seventeen camel-loads of gum and hides, near the ravine of Semmeria, which the Kubbabeesh, for some reason with which I am not acquainted, left lying in the road, having themselves decamped with their camels. Neither the gum nor the hides had suffered any damage, and the whole cargo was subsequently safely delivered at Dongola. The Divan of Lobeid, however, made a demand of thirty thousand piasters as an indemnification for the loss said to be sustained by the damage done to the goods. The sheikh was forced to pay this sum to the very farthing, although the goods had not cost the government more than about one thousand piasters; for the government pays one ox-hide with three piasters, and a cantaro of gum with fifteen piasters. The government, moreover, had not even lost anything in interest for the capital laid out, as the occurrence took place during the dry season. But this is the system pursued by this tyrannical administration for extorting money from this tribe, which is otherwise not highly taxed, and thus it again deprives them of their hard-earned wages, a pittance literally gained by the sweat of their brow, as their pay is always most narrowly calculated; and so much is, moreover, deducted from the sum agreed upon, that barely enough remains to keep them from starving.