The regions of Pagan Soudan are remarkable for the fertility of their soil and the purity of the air. The rains are abundant and prolonged, and in some places cease only two months of the year. In those southern countries are produced many kinds of tubercular plants for food, one of which, called oppo, when cooked upon hot coals, has the colour and the taste of a hard egg. Many fruit and other trees cover the plains. The people, so savage, so inhospitable, so far distant from the populations that are advanced in the industrial arts, display, in the fabrication of certain articles, a most wonderful address, giving them a finish worthy of the ablest European artisan. They make for the kings and princes of Soudan stools and seats of elegant shape and perfect finish. They also manufacture, with a cleverness that reminds one of the English, the knife-poniards which are worn tied to the arm above the elbow, and also the iron-work of lances. I have seen among the Fertyt tubes of iron, the work of which was of surprising purity and beauty, reminding one of European industry. These tubes, which are used for pipes, are not more than a span long, and are bent and twisted like some European pipes; but are more elegant, more graceful, and are so beautifully polished that they resemble silver. The bowls are made of earthenware, adorned with iron circlets. They also make bracelets and armlets of elegant manufacture. The Fertyt make no kind of tissue, having no need of garments. The men wear a kind of apron about a span in breadth, and the women hide themselves only with leaves of trees, which are renewed as soon as they wither. The tribe of the Jengueh is richest in cattle. Their oxen are small, with long horns, and each individual has his flock. These people, men and women, go entirely naked, without apron or leaves. They are the most intrepid of the Fertyt, the most audacious, and the best runners. They are so swift that none can come up with them or escape them. They sleep both sexes together, buried in ashes. This is the way the women in each family prepare the beds: towards evening, when they have milked their cows and finished their domestic labours, they take a large basket and go through the country collecting dry dung, until they have made a great heap before their hut. They then set fire to it and reduce it to ashes. When they want to go to bed, the wife takes a piece of butter and rubs her husband from top to bottom, after which he creeps into his heap of ashes, where he sleeps. In the morning he goes to the first pool of water and washes himself. What I cannot understand in this habit is, that being thus buried in ashes, the Jengueh can breathe without drawing in the dust through the nostrils. Is this the result of habit? Do they leave their heads out in the air, or have they any other particular way of protecting themselves, against suffocation?[42]