city of Africa, the capital of the kingdom of that name. It stands according to Mr Bruce's observations, in N. Lat. 13° 34' 36". E. Long. 33° 30' 30", on the west side of the Nile, and close upon the banks of it; the ground on which it stands being just high enough to prevent the inundation. The town is very populous, and contains a great many houses. In Poncet's time they were all of one story; but now most of the officers have houses of two stories high. They are built of clay mixed with a very little straw, and have all flat roofs; which shows that the rains here must be much less in quantity than to the southward. During the time of Mr Bruce's residence here, however, there was one week of continual rain, and the Nile, after loud thunder and great darkness to the south, increased violently; the whole stream being covered with the wrecks of houses and their furniture; so that he supposed it had destroyed many villages to the southward. About 12 miles to the north-west of Sennaar is a collection of villages named Shaddly, from a great saint of that name, who constructed several granaries here.

There are no other than large pits dug in the ground, and well plastered in the inside with clay, then filled with grain when it is at its lowest price, and afterwards covered up and plastered again at top: these pits they call matamores. On any prospect of dearth they are opened, and the corn sold to the people. About 24 miles north of Shaddly there is another set of granaries named Wedd-Aboud, still greater than Shaddly; and upon these two the subsistence of the Arabs principally depends: for as these people are at continual war with each other, and direct their fury rather against the crops than the persons of their enemies, the whole of them would be unavoidably starved, were it not for this extraordinary resource. Small villages of soldiers are scattered up and down this country to guard the grain after it is sown, which is only that species of millet named dora; the soil, it is said, being incapable of producing any other. There are great hollows made in the earth at proper distances throughout the country, which fill with water in the rainy season, and are afterwards of great use to the Arabs as they pass from the cultivated parts to the fands. The fly, which is such a dreadful enemy to the cattle, is never seen to the northward of Shaddly.

To the westward of these granaries the country is quite full of trees as far as the river Abiad, or El-aice. In this extensive plain there arise two ridges of mountains, one called Jibbel Moira, or the Mountain of water; the other Jibbel Segud, or the Cold Mountain. Both of them enjoy a fine climate, and serve for a protection to the farms about Shaddly and Aboud already mentioned. Here also are fortresses placed in the way of the Arabs, which serve to oblige them to pay tribute in their flight from the cultivated country, during the rains, to the dry lands of Atbara. Each of these districts is governed by a descendant of their ancient and native princes, who long refted all the power of the Arabs. Sacrifices of a horrid nature are said to have been offered up on these mountains till about the year 1554, when one of the kings of Sennaar besieged first one and then the other of the princes in their mountains; and having forced them to surrender, he fastened a chain of gold to each of their ears, exposed them in the market-place at Sennaar, and sold them for slaves at less than a farthing each. Soon after this they were circumcised, converted to the Mahometan religion, and restored to their kingdoms.

"Nothing (says Mr Bruce) is more pleasant than the country around Sennaar in the end of August and beginning of September. The grain, being now sprung up, makes the whole of this immense plain appear a level green land, interperforated with great lakes of water, and ornamented at certain intervals with groups of villages; the conical tops of the houses presenting at a distance the appearance of small encampments. Through this very extensive plain winds the Nile, a delightful river there, above a mile broad, full to the very brim, but never overflowing. Everywhere on these banks are seen herds of the most beautiful cattle of various kinds. The banks of the Nile about Sennaar resemble the pleasantest part of Holland in the summer season; but soon after, when the rains cease, and the sun exerts its utmost influence, the dora begins to ripen, the leaves to turn yellow and to rot, the lakes to putrefy, smell, become full of vermin, and all its beauty suddenly disappears: bare scorched Nubia returns, and all its terrors of poisonous Sennar.

famous winds and moving sands, glowing and ventilated with sultry blasts, which are followed by a troop of terrible attendants; epilepsies, apoplectics, violent fevers, obstinate agues, and lingering painful dyfenteries, still more obstinate and mortal.

"War and treason seem to be the only employment of this horrid people, whom Heaven has separated by almost impassable deserts from the rest of mankind; confining them to an accursed spot, seemingly to give them an earnest in time of the only other curse which he has reserved to them for an eternal hereafter."

With regard to the climate of the country round Sennar, Mr Bruce has several very curious observations. The thermometer rises in the shade to 119 degrees; but the degree indicated by this instrument does not at all correspond with the sensations occasioned by it; nor with the colour of the people who live under it.

"Nations of blacks (says he) live within latitude 13 and 14 degrees; about 10 degrees south of them, nearly under the line, all the people are white, as we had an opportunity of observing daily in the Galla. Sennar, which is in latitude 13 degrees, is hotter by the thermometer 50 degrees, when the sun is most distant from it, than Gondar, which is a degree farther south, when the sun is vertical.—Cold and hot (says our author) are terms merely relative, not determined by the latitude, but elevation of the place. When, therefore, we say hot, some other explanation is necessary concerning the place where we are, in order to give an adequate idea of the sensations of that heat upon the body, and the effects of it upon the lungs. The degree of the thermometer conveys this but very imperfectly; 90 degrees is excessively hot at Loheia in Arabia Felix; and yet the latitude of Loheia is but 15 degrees; whereas 90 degrees at Sennar is only warm as to senfe; though Sennar, as we have already said, is in latitude 13 degrees.

"At Sennar, then, I call it cold, when one fully clothed and at rest feels himself in want of fire. I call it cool, when one fully clothed and at rest feels he could bear more covering all over, or in part, than he has at that time. I call it temperate, when a man so clothed, and at rest, feels no such want, and can take moderate exercise, such as walking about a room without sweating. I call it warm, when a man, so clothed, does not sweat when at rest; but, on taking moderate exercise, sweats, and again cools. I call it hot, when a man at rest, or with moderate exercise, sweats excessively. I call it very hot, when a man with thin, or little clothing, sweats much, though at rest. I call it excessive hot, when a man, in his shirt and at rest, sweats excessively, when all motion is painful, and the knees feel feeble, as if after a fever. I call it extreme hot, when the strength fails, a disposition to faint comes on, a straitness is found in the temples, as if a small cord was drawn tight about the head, the voice impaired, the skin dry, and the head seems more than ordinarily large and light. This, I apprehend, denotes death at hand; but this is rarely if ever effected by the sun alone, without the addition of that poisonous wind which pursued us through Atbara, where it has, no doubt, contributed to the total extinction of every thing that hath the breath of life. A thermometer, graduated upon this scale, would exhibit a figure very different from the common one; for I am convinced by experiment, that a web of the finest muslin, wrapt round the body at Sennar, will occasion at mid-day a greater sensation of heat in the body, than a rise of 5 degrees in the thermometer of Fahrenheit.

"At Sennar, from 70 to 78 degrees of Fahrenheit's thermometer is cool; from 79 to 92 temperate; at 92 degrees begins warmth. Although the degree of the thermometer marks a greater heat than is felt by the body of us strangers, it seems to me that the sensations of the natives bear still a less proportion to that degree than ours. On the 2d of August, while I was lying perfectly enervated on a carpet in a room deluged with water at 12 o'clock, the thermometer at 116, I saw several black labourers pulling down a house, working with great vigour, without any symptoms of being incommoded."

The dress of the people of Sennar consists only of a long shirt of blue cloth, which wraps them up from the under part of the neck to the feet. It does not, however, conceal the neck in the men, though it does in the women. The men sometimes have a sail tied about their middle; and both men and women go barefooted in the houses, whatever their rank may be. The floors of their apartments, especially those of the women, are covered with Persian carpets. Both men and women anoint themselves, at least once a day, with camel's grease mixed with civet, which, they imagine, softens their skins, and preserves them from cutaneous eruptions; of which they are so fearful, that they confine themselves to the house if they observe the smallest pimple on their skins. With the same view of preserving their skins, though they have a clean shirt every day, they sleep with a greased one at night, having no other covering but this. Their bed is a tanned bull's hide, which this constant greasing softens very much; it is also very cool, though it gives a fineness to their bodies from which they cannot be freed by any washing.

Our author gives a very curious description of the queens and ladies of the court at Sennar. He had access to them as a physician, and was permitted to pay his visit alone. He was first shown into a large square apartment, where there were about 50 black women, all quite naked excepting a very narrow piece of cotton rag about their waists. As he was musing whether these were all queens, one of them took him by the hand, and led him into another apartment much better lighted than the former. Here he saw three women fitting upon a bench or sofa covered with blue Surat cloth; they themselves being clothed from the neck to the feet with cotton shirts of the same colour. These were three of the king's wives; his favourite, who was one of the number, appeared to be about six feet high, and so corpulent that our traveller imagined her to be the largest creature he had seen next to the elephant and rhinoceros. Her features perfectly resembled those of a negro; a ring of gold puffed through her under lip, and weighed it down, till, like a flap, it covered her chin, leaving her teeth bare, which were small and very fine. The inside of her lip was made black with antimony. Her ears reached down to her shoulders, and had the appearance of wings; there was a gold ring in each of them about five inches in diameter, and somewhat smaller than a man's little finger; the weight of which had drawn down the hole where her ear was pierced pierced so much that three fingers might easily pass above the ring. She had a gold necklace like that called Esclavage, of several rows, one below another; to which were hung rows of sequins pierced. She had two manacles of gold upon her ankles larger than those used for chaining felons. Our author could not imagine how it was possible for her to walk with them, till he was informed that they were hollow. The others were dressed much in the same manner; only there was one who had chains coming from her ears to the outside of each nostril, where they were fastened. A ring was also put through the gristle of her nose, and which hung down to the opening of her mouth; having all together something of the appearance of a horse's bridle; and Mr Bruce thinks that she must have breathed with difficulty.

The poorer sort of the people of Sennaar live on the flour or bread of millet; the rich make puddings of this, toasting the flour before the fire, and putting milk and butter into it; besides which they use beef partly roasted and partly raw. They have very fine and fat horned cattle, but the meat commonly sold in the market is camel's flesh. The liver and spare rib of this animal are always eaten raw; nor did our author see one instance to the contrary all the time he was in the country. Hog's flesh is not sold in the market; but all the common people of Sennaar eat it openly; those in office, who pretend to be Mahometans, doing the same in secret.

There are no manufactures in this country, and the principal article of trade is blue Surat cloth. In former times, when caravans could pass with safety, Indian goods were brought in quantities from Jidda to Sennaar, and then dispersed over the country of the blacks. The returns were made in gold, a powder called tibbar, civet, rhinoceros horns, ivory, ostrich feathers, and above all slaves or glafs, more of these being exported from Sennaar than from all the east of Africa. This trade, however, as well as that of the gold and ivory, is almost destroyed; though the gold is still reputed to be the best and purest in Africa, and is therefore bought at Mocha to be carried to India, where it all centres at last.