As A Green Field Is An Attraction To A
Flight Of Locusts In Their Desolating Voyage, So Is A Luxuriant
Farm in the Soudan a point for the tax-collectors of Upper Egypt.
I have frequently ridden several days' journey
Through a
succession of empty villages, deserted by the inhabitants upon
the report of the soldiers' approach; the women and children,
goats and cattle, camels and asses, have all been removed into
the wilderness for refuge, while their crops of corn have been
left standing for the plunderers, who would be too idle to reap
and thrash the grain.
Notwithstanding the misrule that fetters the steps of
improvement, Nature has bestowed such great capabilities of
production in the fertile soil of this country, that the yield of
a small surface is more than sufficient for the requirements of
the population, and actual poverty is unknown. The average price
of dhurra is fifteen piastres per "rachel," or about 3s. 2d. for
500 lbs. upon the spot where it is grown. The dhurra (Sorghum
andropogon) is the grain most commonly used throughout the
Soudan; there are great varieties of this plant, of which the
most common are the white and the red. The land is not only
favoured by Nature by its fertility, but the intense heat of the
summer is the labourer's great assistant. As before described,
all vegetation entirely disappears in the glaring Sun, or becomes
so dry that it is swept off by fire; thus the soil is perfectly
clean and fit for immediate cultivation upon the arrival of the
rains.
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