No systematic mining seems to be carried on in the “Hofrat-el-Nahahs,” and the man who brought me the sample carefully concealed in his clothes, informed me that the ore was found lying like loose rubble in the dry bed of a khor. It may be presumed that by boring galleries, or even by hewing out quarries, a large supply of the metal might be obtained without any vast expenditure of time or money, for even in the present condition of things, while the solid rock still remains intact, the yield of copper for years past has been very considerable. The Foorian copper even now takes a prominent part in the commerce of the entire Soudan; it is conveyed across Wadai to Kano in Haussa, and, according to Barth, it holds its own in the market even against that imported from Tripoli.
FOOTNOTES:
[64] “Kurnuk” is the term used by the Nubians and Foorians for a shed; the corresponding expression in the Soudan Arabic being “Daher-el-Tor,” literally, the back of an ox; thus “kurnuk” means generally any roof with a horizontal ridge.
[65] Dr. Steudner died on the 10th of April, 1863, from an attack of fever; a few days before that, in company with Heuglin, he had commenced his first journey into the interior; his object had been to reconnoitre the country to the west of the Meshera, and to find a suitable place for the accommodation of Miss Tinné’s party during the rainy season.
[66] The real name of the firm is Ali-Aboo-Amoory, and it has acquired an undesirable notoriety for its fraudulent dealings with Miss Tinné’s expedition.
[67] “Kulloo” is in this neighbourhood the generic name for brooks of this character.
[68] This was the most westerly point that Heuglin reached in Central Africa.
[69] In the dialect of the Soudan these distinctions are respectively rendered by the terms “Dar” (cultivated land) and “Akabah” (wilderness).
[70] The Khartoomers have given the word Dehm an Arabic plural, “Dwehm;” and by this term they distinguish the great slave marts of the west.
[71] The entire number that year rose to 2700.