and grow considerable quantities of onions, with which they supply the Shendy market. Their huts are made of mats; I entered several of them, but could not get a drop of milk without paying for it in Dhourra. The road across the plain was much entangled with weeds, and overhanging branches of acacia, which rendered the passage somewhat troublesome to our loaded camels. We rode for two or three hours in this fertile district, and then entered again upon a sandy plain overgrown with large Syale trees, where we stopped during the noontide hours, on the high banks of the river, and watered our camels. Large flocks of storks passed over our heads to the northward. At the end of seven hours from our setting out in the morning we reached the extremity of the sandy plain, where commences a tract called Boeydha (بويضه), less extensive, but equally fertile with the plain preceding. It contains many small hamlets, in which the houses consist generally of one room only, serving for all purposes. Here are the salt-works which supply the whole country as far as Sennaar with salt. The earth, which for several miles round is strongly impregnated with salt, is collected by the Arabs in heaps upon the side of the road. The salt is separated from the earth by boiling in large earthen vessels, and the saline part is then boiled a second time, in smaller vessels. The salt is afterwards formed into small round cakes about a foot in diameter, and three inches in thickness; it is perfectly white, and has much the appearance of rock salt. About a dozen cakes are packed together in a basket; four baskets make a camel’s load. This salt constitutes a considerable branch of the Shendy trade. The Sennaar merchants buy it in great quantities for the Abyssinian markets, and exchange it in the mountains about Ras el Fil, for slaves and gold. The works are the property of the Mek of Shendy: there were about twenty boilers on the fire when I passed. Just beyond the plain of Boeydha, where the road again enters a barren sandy desert, stands a tall date-tree, the only one of its species met with hereabouts, for no dates are grown anywhere from Dóngola to Sennaar. The merchants hail this tree as a beacon which marks the successful termination of their journey. Several people of Shendy were waiting for us, to salute their acquaintances, and take a look at the loads. As traders never enter Shendy in the day time, we halted till sun-set, and then proceeded slowly towards the town, which we reached after about nine hours march from our departure from Djebail.