Polygamy is not a general custom, each man takes to himself only one or two women; the sheikhs alone have several wives. When a man is about to lead a girl away as his wife, he treats first with the father concerning the price at which he will deliver her up. The amount of course varies much, and depends on the youth, beauty, and other advantageous qualifications of the chosen bride. The dowry consists generally in a certain number of cows, goats, or sheep, which become the personal property of the newly-married woman. As soon as the agreement and business transactions are settled, the bridegroom proceeds, accompanied by all the young men in the village, to the hut of his selected wife, who is delivered by the mother and nearest relations, with some simple ceremonies, to the bridegroom; and he now leads her with song, drums, and fifes, into his own hut, where a feast is prepared for all his guests. In conclusion there is a ball at which all assist, and thus the marriage festivities terminate. In their family circles these negroes live very peaceably, and if a case ever occur that a husband for any reason separate from his wife, she goes back to her parents, keeps her marriage portion, and takes every thing she has received from her husband away with her. Their agricultural pursuits are very profitable to them, and require very little labour, as the soil is uncommonly fertile; hence their occupations in the fields during the time of sowing and of the harvest are terminated in an incredibly short space of time, and they have nothing to do but to rake up the weeds with the _hasseiaseh_, in the intermediate space between the two former seasons. After the first fall of rain they hasten to the fields and plant the dockn; this is done in the same manner as in Kordofan, and will be explained hereafter in the twelfth chapter. Tobacco is largely cultivated, for they are inordinately addicted to smoking. When the plant has arrived at its full growth the leaves are gathered and dried, and after having been subjected to a process of damping, are formed into the shape of a cake. When the negroes are about to smoke they break off a piece of the size required, rub it to powder between their hands, and fill their pipes. Their tobacco is very potent, so that an European is, in fact, obliged to soak it in water for twenty-four hours before he can use it to render it more mild; and even then he will find it too acrid, and it almost amounts to an impossibility to smoke two of their short pipes successively. They barter away this product. The whole of their husbandry is comprised in the cultivation of these two articles, and in the interval between the sowing season and the harvest their occupation consists merely in rearing cattle, in hunting, and throwing spears.